


Trust Fall

by DroppedAllTheseOreos



Series: The Dragon Jesus Saga [2]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Minor Body Horror, Pining, Unrequited Love, haha unless...?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 25,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DroppedAllTheseOreos/pseuds/DroppedAllTheseOreos
Summary: "Kiriya thought back to that joke he made about Graphite being Dragon Jesus on Christmas, realizing it might be more apt than he initially thought.  He didn't know much about Christian myths, but one in particular about Lucifer trying to convince Jesus to jump off a cliff stuck out to him right now. And standing on the edge of the hospital roof with Graphite at his side, trying to convince him to make a metaphorical leap of faith, he realized he might just be Lucifer in this messed-up game religion Kuroto created."Or, a handful of times Graphite and Kiriya's relationship changed on the Seito Hospital Roof, and everything else in between.
Relationships: Graphite & Kujou Kiriya, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Saiba Nico/Poppy Pipopapo, onesided Graphite/Kujou Kiriya
Series: The Dragon Jesus Saga [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601899
Comments: 93
Kudos: 8
Collections: Kiriphite (Kiriya Kujou/Graphite) Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended to be all one fic, but I felt like it got way too huge to have in one chapter. I get overwhelmed by giant wordcounts so I split it up to maintain my sanity for editing and making sure it looks good on Ao3's formatting lol. So please feel free to hit Entire Work and enjoy it as it was meant to be before it turned into this monstrosity.
> 
> Shout out to [Agacerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agacerie) for letting me scream about this in chat and encouraging me to finish this. Double thanks for giving me some good insight on how to write some of the relationships between Graphite and the others in this fic. Couldn't have done it without you!

Seeing Parad, Kuroto, and Graphite together again was a little scary. Less so, when Graphite was in his human form most of the time and anyone could read his disgust from being around Kuroto again a mile away. But it still felt like looking at a huge mistake. A mistake the rest of CR made sure to regularly remind Poppy and Kiriya of since Christmas passed them a month ago, and Graphite was still willingly hanging out with the other two former Genm menaces. He genuinely attempted to socialize during the Christmas party, but by the end of it he was nearly attached to Poppy's hip, perpetually scowling and clearly uncomfortable with everyone else.

Fortunately, Kiriya had a solution. He already knew Graphite and Kuroto didn't play well together, and he only hung around because of Parad. When he was fed up with the Genm duo, he'd stay with Poppy the whole day. But, she reluctantly had to put a stop to it because his resting face was intimidating her patients, and the other nurses were giving her flack. She did her best to keep him around, but eventually, Haima had to put his foot down. Gently, of course. Kiriya, on the other hand, didn't deal with patients often. And if he did, it's not like they were going to complain about Graphite's looks. These conditions lead him to come up with a grand plan to get Graphite on his own and offer up some compensation for the way they'd treated each other every time they'd met up until now. If that went well and Graphite accepted his companionship, they could bond over their shared hatred of Kuroto and go from there.

And getting Graphite on his own was easy.

Graphite tended to lone-wolf it a lot. Meaning he sulked on the roof by himself, if he and Kuroto had some big blowout fight, or anything set him off. And a lot of things set him off. Taiga could accidentally make eye contact, and Graphite would growl back before disappearing in a crackle of red pixels. Kiriya knew Graphite probably wasn't going to be in the best mood when the roof is where he found him, standing near the edge, but he could work with that. He took the time to observe Graphite before approaching and choked back a gasp. This was the first time he'd ever seen Graphite look peaceful. No scowl, or admittedly sexy as fuck smirk twisting his features. He stood there, face turned skywards, eyes closed, with a neutral look, the corners of his lips quirked up the slightest bit like he was enjoying the brisk winter air.

Kiriya made sure his approach was loud to not startle Graphite, but he called out to Kiriya without even turning his way.

"Lazer," He greeted.

"It's Kiriya, actually."

Now, that got Graphite's attention. The dragon slowly turned to him, face carefully stoic. "What do you want?"

"To properly introduce myself." Kiriya held his hand out. "We never got to officially meet, and I feel kinda left out."

Graphite's eyes flicked down to Kiriya's hand, then to his face, fixing him with an icy stare. They stood like that for a few more moments, and as Kiriya was just about to take his hand back, Graphite smirked.

"Then keep feeling left out."

Kiriya laughed, hooking his thumb in his pocket. Hand rescinded, but still open to be taken; if Graphite was feeling particularly bold. "Fair enough."

Graphite appraised him with a glance, then turned back to look at the sky. "I'll ask one more time. What do you want?"

"I want to offer you a deal. Repay you, in a sense."

Graphite didn't give any acknowledgment to what Kiriya said, but given the fact that he was still standing around, Kiriya figured that was permission to continue.

"I'm going to give you one," Kiriya held up his pointer finger, "punch, anywhere you want, but preferably my face, to make up for me ambushing you when I was working with Masamune."

Graphite wobbled on the ledge precariously before taking a step back, eyes locking on to Kiriya's own, clearly caught off guard.

Perfect.

Kiriya felt his heart rate pick up as he watched Graphite process his words. He knew it would get Graphite's attention at least, especially with that tacked on bit, asking for a punch somewhere Kiriya couldn't hide the evidence. Graphite at his core was an honorable warrior, so he'd respond to physicality and seeing proof of it the best. But now it was just worrying about the reaction. Would he just go for it? Graphite didn't seem like a big speech person, but he did have his moments. It would be a bit much for something like this, but Kiriya would only judge a little.

Graphite's eyes narrowed, "Why your face specifically?"

Well, he wasn't expecting Graphite to get caught up on that, but it was easy enough to make up an answer. "If it bruises nicely, I can tell everyone I got hit by a dragon and survived." He grinned.

"But you would've let it happen," Graphite's lips twisted, "That's not very interesting, and it makes you sound like a self-centered prick, going around provoking people for bragging rights."

Kiriya shrugged. "I can always spin the story a little bit to make it sound cooler. Tell people I put up a good fight, and it was some big, epic battle. You like those, right?"

Graphite still looked wary, but there was a glint of interest in his eyes.

"C'mon, aren't you at least a little bitter about getting ambushed like that? And I ruined your big plan! You could've finished Masamune right then and there." Kiriya tried to keep the grin off his face as Graphite looked to the side, sighing heavily. He was trying to make it seem like he was weighing his options, but Kiriya knew he'd already made up his mind.

"All right, but on one condition," Graphite gave him that haughty smirk, and Kiriya felt himself melt just a little. "I won't do it now."

"I can clear my schedule to whatever fits you." Kiriya laughed.

Graphite shook his head. "Keep going on like everything's normal. I'm gonna snap your fucking spine when you least expect it. More fun that way, don't you think?"

Kiriya felt a chill wash over his body, immediately chased by a shudder and a wave of warmth, crawling anticipation with the slightest undertone of arousal. He didn't think he'd be into the prospect of being hunted, especially after everything he'd gone through to get Graphite back. But when things like _that_ were said to him, he immediately recognized how it could be hot.

He subtly tried to clear his throat to make sure his voice was steady as he stuck his hand out.

"You've got yourself a deal."

Graphite looked down at his hand for a moment. Kiriya wondered if he was having second thoughts, but his hand got wrapped up in a firm grip. Graphite made eye contact, nodding once, and all too soon his hand was letting go of Kiriya's.

"Good, now get the fuck out of here and leave me alone." Graphite jerked his head toward the door.

Kiriya grinned and left with a sarcastic, flourishing bow. "Of course, your majesty."

Graphite's scoff made him grin as he closed the door behind him.

When Kiriya went to sleep that night, his dreams were filled with hot breath against the back of his neck, and glowing silver eyes, gleaming at him from the dark. He was running through the Drago Knight forest again, the silhouette of something following him from the trees, powerful and graceful, navigating between them with ease. Just when he thought he could escape, he slipped on something, crashing to the ground. Before he could even think, it pounced on him, fangs and claws cradling him, tracing his skin gently. It was toying with him, lulling him into a relaxed state before the sickly sweet bite of them dug into his skin.

He woke up slowly from it, feeling rested and warm before it fully registered with his conscious mind, which was suddenly feeling anxious about what he'd just gotten himself into.


	2. Chapter 2

Poppy and Kiriya stared at the pile of Salty parts they'd placed on a borrowed morgue gurney. They were in the relative safety of CR's quarantine room, but somehow it still felt dangerous.

With a glance up to the observation window, Kiriya saw a flash of pixels and wondered if the unsafe feeling came from Graphite's eyes on him. It could be any of the other bugsters at this point giving him bad vibes since the Genm trio was getting antsy and agitated. It started off when he and Poppy pulled a dismantled Salty from Chronicle with no way to put him back together. Parad had gotten all sulky and refused to acknowledge Kiriya. Then Kuroto glared at him.

Usually, he'd sneer back and flip him off, but this one felt different. Protective, maybe? Over Parad? Kiriya filed the info away for a day when he could take some time to mess with them. But of course, if Parad was upset, that meant Kuroto got more manic, and that put more pressure on Graphite, meaning he leaned into toying with Kiriya more.

Whatever the reason for Kiriya's current unease, it had been a week since they pulled Salty out, and he was still inactive, so they needed to get cracking on this problem.

"Maybe it's because Masamune deleted Salty, rather than just getting absorbed into Gamedeus or infecting himself." Poppy mused. "I mean, maybe you can do what Graphite did, since you got infected, too."

"Yeah, you might be weird too, what, with the whole vaccine stunt you pulled," Kiriya tapped his lips thoughtfully, "But, unless you can get me more lives, I'm not ready to take the risk of getting deleted and not being able to reform myself after you get me out of Bakusou Bike."

Poppy bounced on her toes. "Kiriya! Did you really say something in favor of self-preservation? I'm so pipopapo-proud of you!"

Kiriya waved a hand dismissively. "Don't get your hopes up too much. I'm still ready and willing to do that if we have no other options. I'm just, kinda getting attached to my vaccine team, y'know? They're doing good work, and everyone else is already so swamped, I'd be more of a burden if I were gone."

Poppy gave him a knowing smile but let it go, for now.

"Well, Salty's gonna stay like this until we figure out how to bring him back fully."

"Nico offered up 'the power of spite' as the reason Graphite was able to come back when I mentioned Salty to her yesterday." Poppy shook her head fondly.

Kiriya laughed. "If that's true, then I don't think either of us would have any luck coming back after getting deleted."

"There's a lot of factors. Maybe we can try having you think about Kuroto as you die." Poppy tried to keep professional, but she couldn't help a giggle escaping. "We'll just have to keep trying with what we've got," she moved to one of the computers they had hooked up to a modified Game Scope set to monitor Salty's condition. "While we do that, how're things going with Graphite? He told me you were interesting. And he seems like he's been in a better mood. Sans this week, granted. But he seems like he's excited to be around here now." Kiriya mentally slapped himself for perking up at that. Poppy pretended not to notice as she went on. "Graphite's even been working on his resting face so he can follow me on my rounds instead of being stubborn!"

"I may or may not have set up a little game with him to play with his interest in people outside of his clique," Kiriya said nonchalantly, prodding Salty's hat with his pen.

Poppy fixed him with a Look. "And you're not going to do anything... uncomfortable with him, right?"

Kiriya's lips pressed together. He tried to let himself be more truthful around her since it was genuinely the least he could do after how long she carried the team's morale. "Well, I was thinking of asking him to play lab rat for me, since we'll need to ask him to cooperate eventually to help us with the Salty problem. And, yeah, I might try to push his buttons a little, but I think he likes a challenge on his patience when it's not tactless. So..."

Poppy's nose scrunched up, "Ah, yes, because you're a master of tact," But she sighed and fixed him with a stern look, "Okay. I'm gonna _trust_ you on this. If you do anything terrible to him, you're answering to me. Right after he's done with you, of course."

"Of course," Kiriya nodded gratefully.


	3. Chapter 3

With Poppy supporting— _trusting._ Fuck, she was trusting him on this.

With Poppy trusting him on this, Kiriya was even more determined not to screw up. But, he was confident he had this figured out. Kiriya's kill two Kurotos with one swing plan regarding Graphite was simple:

1\. Be Straightforward  
2\. Set the Terms of Engagement  
3\. Push the Right Buttons (Lightly, no Full A-Presses here or whatever that meme Emu told him was)  
4\. ???  
5\. (Hopefully) Profit

If Graphite reacted the way he expected him to, then the Graphite continuing to form one leg of the Genm triangle and invalidating all of his and Poppy's hard work problem, _and_ the Salty problem would be on their ways to getting solved. With this in mind, Kiriya walked up the steps to CR, looking around for Graphite. He found him lounging around on the couch, another place he'd become fond of in his time back.

Kiriya did a careful sweep of the place, making sure they'd have at least some privacy for this talk. Parad seemed to be out for the time being, probably following Emu or (strangely) Taiga around, and Kuroto had tunnel vision on his coding, so it was unlikely he'd hear anything unless someone yelled "God" or his "full" name at him.

Graphite looked a little sleepy, curled up against the further arm of the couch. Kiriya felt his lips involuntarily quirk up; it was kinda cute. He looked soft like this, like how he was on the roof enjoying the breeze. Pushing that aside quickly, Kiriya loudly pulled up a chair, span it on one of its legs, and plonked it down backwards. Graphite lazily opened one eye to catch him in its piercing gaze as Kiriya swung his leg over the seat and rested his arms and chin on the back of it.

"Lazer."

"Kiriya," he insisted. "C'mon, I thought we were past all the rider tags and fighting."

Graphite breathed in loudly, settling deeper into the couch with a soft exhale. "If you say so."

Kiriya quickly used a smile to mask his disappointment and continued, "Well, lemme get right to it then. I want to know if you'd be down to play lab rat for me. Or dragon, if you'd prefer."

Graphite stirred enough to glare at him from the corner of his eye, and Kiriya went on to milk it a little more. Poppy said he could push buttons, so of course he was going to.

"Lab dragon. Yeah, that sounds better." Graphite's scowl deepened, and Kiriya moved on with a smirk, "Anyways, I wanted to run some tests to get a better handle on bugster physiology. Maybe figure out how you pulled yourself together. Also, I ran it by Poppy, and she can come by to help out if she has time around her schedule as Asuna. We think it'd be helpful in figuring out how to get Salty reconstructed."

Graphite's lips quickly pulled into an impatient frown from what wasn't smushed against the couch arm. Okay, not exactly what Kiriya was hoping for, but that's what the rest of the plan was for.

"What's that face? I thought you'd be at least a little more excited to help your buddy out."

Graphite hid his face in the couch more, grumbling before pushing himself up to fully face Kiriya.

"Have you considered I don't wanna be close to you? Brave, Snipe, and Nico won my respect, but what have you done?"

"I mean, besides offer you a free shot at vengeance that I let you turn into a fun little game where I'm your prey? Yeah, nothing," Kiriya winked cheekily.

Graphite made an expression that was definitely not a pout, no absolutely not. He was a big scary dragon, and he didn't puff his cheeks out the slightest bit as his lips drew together in a moue. Kiriya did his best to stave off a grin threatening to reach his eyes as he waited for Graphite's answer.

"I'd say your underhanded methods cancels it out, but I did agree to the game. And that's what this is, isn't it? Whatever's between you and me?"

Kiriya nodded, "You have a different kind of game than Parad or Poppy, but I have a good idea of how to play and figured you needed some kind of stimulation. And now I'm a little tired of being a passive player."

Graphite smirked at him, but his lip twisted in contempt. "It was fun to watch you squirm, but I do enjoy a more active hunt." He scoffed. "So this is your big plan? Paint yourself as prey, then come to me willingly like it'll throw me off?"

"Huh," Kiriya kept smirking, "You're a little more perceptive than everyone made you out to be."

"Prey coming to fight is kinda the whole premise of my game, so I expected you'd come at me eventually. Though none of them approach like you," Kiriya quirked an eyebrow, but Graphite crossed his arms and sunk back into the couch, "The whole, 'how others see me' thing. I guess I seem impulsive and dumb, but I don't like answering stupid questions or sitting around waiting for plans when I could be doing better things with my time," Graphite shrugged, "And believe me, being around Kuroto was so much waiting around. Do you know how much I wanted to go out and fight you once you blackmailed your gashat out of him? But he just kept telling me 'wait,' because he hadn't found the rest of his players yet."

Kiriya's eyelids fluttered in surprise, "You wanted to fight me?"

Graphite's lip twitched, "Not anymore. I got my fight with Brave and Snipe, and you don't seem interested anymore. Since we're past all that, right?" He mocked.

A little rattled, Kiriya just shrugged, "I guess if you're down, I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. Though I don't think it'd be an even match given you're," Kiriya made a gesture to all of him, "Level Infinity or whatever."

"I don't think I'm infected with Gamedeus anymore, so I'm probably back to Level 99."

"Well, I can help you get a definitive answer to that."

"You're still on this testing thing, huh?" The corner of Graphite's mouth pulled up to bare his fangs.

"I'm curious, and you could use time with people who aren't Kuroto. Especially since Poppy's out as a solid option until you fix that resting scowl," an offended sound rumbled in Graphite's chest, and Kiriya bit his tongue to stay serious, "I have time, and I don't think you have many pressing things going on. I could always be wrong, but..."

Graphite continued to glare holes into Kiriya as he watched him with growing annoyance.

"You _can_ leave any time you'd like. You know that, right? Just because we're sort of allies now doesn't mean you have to stick around for whatever I'm saying."

But Graphite didn't move or say anything. He was so still, he didn't even seem like he was breathing. Not like he needed to, but it was still unnerving since he generally had some kind of idle animations simulating life constantly running. Now, he just kept staring with his arms crossed; head held high, expression unimpressed, but seemingly interested enough in Kiriya to stick around.

"Ho-kay... Well, like I said, Poppy's busy, but they gave me a coding team at Genm, and we're at a point where I just need to be there in case something goes horribly wrong. But otherwise, they're just reading through and readjusting values of virus samples to weaken them enough to be vaccines. Y'know, As you do, but like, code instead of chemicals."

"Of course I know, asshat. You don't need a medical degree to understand vaccines."

"Of course you know," and Kiriya tried to make it sound as sincere as possible, "So basically, I was planning to just come in every day, now that I'll be getting off work on time, and I'm not dedicating 100% of my brain to undoing Kuroto's code, which, can I say? Really sloppy in some places." Graphite snorted and Kiriya allowed himself a triumphant little grin, "Anyways, I thought I could just come in and interview you a little bit, establish a baseline."

Graphite's jaw shifted impatiently. "I thought you wanted to run tests on me?"

And there it was, the question Kiriya was waiting for and thought would never come, given how disastrous the rest of this was.

"That'll come whenever you're comfortable with it. As much as I'd love to strap you into a CT scan and see what happens, I've been told I have problems with 'respecting boundaries,' so I'm trying to work on that and make sure you're in your comfort zone."

Graphite's eye twitched— another score for Kiriya, he was in absolute disbelief. He was actually provoking him the way he planned.

Everyone had a comfort zone, needed one. But it was easy to tell Graphite liked to ignore his own as much as possible. So, even the implication that Graphite had one should be enough to get him going in the direction Kiriya wanted. It was kind of shitty to take advantage of, but if Kiriya wanted results, he'd have to push places that would force Graphite to move.

"I'm pretty sure they said that was just about your tendency to hug people without checking if it's cool." Graphite quirked an eyebrow.

"Ooh, who's 'they?' You been talking with Poppy 'bout me? Or maybe," Kiriya faked a scandalized gasp, "You talkin' shit with Taiga and Hiiro about me? Since you're fond of them now, and all."

Graphite tossed his head as he scoffed, "Unlike you, I can keep my mouth shut when I have crucial information."

Kiriya scoffed. "I'm pretty good at keeping crucial information if my record of work with Game Disease has anything to say about it."

And there was Graphite's cocky little smirk again. "I clearly remember someone getting _obliterated_ when he blabbed about Genm's secret identity to the man himself instead of literally anyone else in the fight that could've helped him."

Kiriya's jaw dropped, "You still remember that?" This whole plan was supposed to be about catching Graphite off guard, but here he was... digging up ancient history and dropping it right on Kiriya. "That's... a pretty good discovery honestly..."

Graphite blinked rapidly. And Kiriya continued before he could ask. "Kuroto said because Saki was deleted, your memory banks would be fucked. I know he's not always right, but I'm more surprised you're still so sharp after coming back. Like," Kiriya meshed his fingers together, "Y'know?"

With a long-suffering look, Graphite nodded once, slowly. "Yes, I know. I did that myself. You were there, too." He said patronizingly.

"I was!" Kiriya reached over to nudge him on the shoulder. "But see? We haven't even started interviewing or testing, and we're already finding out cool things about you. Think about what else we can learn."

An awkward silence stretched out between them as Graphite rolled his eyes. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here, and Kiriya had given him the out. He _could_ teleport away, but Kiriya wouldn't push it. Not right now, at least. Graphite stayed put, and Kiriya held onto the smidge of hope that he was slightly interested in hanging out.

"Also, you can complain as much as you want the whole time. I know hanging out with Kuroto isn't easy." He smirked.

That got a whisper of a chuckle out of Graphite, and he smiled crookedly at Kiriya. "I'll think about it." He grumbled with no real heat behind it.

"Good enough for me." Kiriya grinned, standing up and spinning the chair back into place.


	4. Chapter 4

"Can you turn into a whole dragon?"

Irratably, Graphite cracked one eye open to glower up at Kiriya blocking his sun.

"Why do you want to know?"

Kiriya slowly lowered himself to the ground, sitting down with a content sigh. "Because I remember the bugster you infected everyone with's Phase 1 was a big, traditional western dragon. Not that I don't think your regular monster form isn't cool, but I was just wondering if you had a Phase 1 form and could switch back to it."

Graphite closed his eyes again and leaned back against the wall. "If I ever had one, I never got to experience it. I was just dormant in Saki until I was fully formed like this. Probably because Taiga didn't get to do any extraction on her until I incubated enough and Kuroto did something weird with both of us."

Kiriya tilted his head. "So let's try?"

Graphite huffed. "Is this part of your 'testing' for getting Salty to reform? Because I never agreed."

"Well, if it's gonna turn you off of this, then I'll be truthful. It's more to sate my personal curiosity. Honestly, Kuroto knows so little about Bugster physiology it's not funny. And Parad's out as a test subject, of course. He's the outlier case. Doesn't even seem to like me all that much, so whatever. I haven't been trying to make a good impression either. Anyways, in theory, if I were to study someone for Salty, we need someone more in the average range of what a typical boss bugster is."

"What about Poppy?"

"Yeah, she was the first one I went to. Hers' is pretty cool. Way more interesting than _gun."_ Graphite raised an eyebrow and Kiriya smirked. "It's that kinda... You know Pokemon?" Graphite rolled his eyes with a little smirk but nodded. "It kinda looks like that newer one, Pyukumuku? The sea cucumber with the lil' rabbit ears, yeah?" Kiriya raised his pointer fingers to either side of his head and wiggled them, getting a grumble of affirmation Graphite, "So that, but with like, those orb cell formations making up long ass arms, claws, and a tail with spikes."

"I'm amazed you know Pokemon from that generation."

"It's based on Hawaii, I'm obligated to check it out," Kiriya grinned.

Graphite glanced at him curiously, but quickly returned to pretending to ignore him, "Yourself?"

"I'm not exactly eager to turn into a giant spiked wheel with no idea how to turn back, so that's on hold until I get better at the whole 'being a bugster' thing," Graphite scoffed, and Kiriya's brows drew up in concern, "Wait, this isn't degrading for you is it? Like, is being a wyvern on the level of being a giant wheel for you?"

Pointedly ignoring him, Graphite just sighed and got to his feet, "Will you leave me alone right after?"

"Yup, that's all I have time for today."

"Good, then this'll be quick." Graphite sauntered past him out to the middle of the roof.

Kiriya jumped to his feet and followed him out, maybe closer than he should've, but how else was he going to get any data? He took his phone out and started recording as Graphite tilted his head this way and that, seemingly warming up. Suddenly his whole body rippled with a wave of pixels. Then another.

He dropped to his knees suddenly, the virus bubbled and propagated across his form, stretching and adding to it. His face elongated into a bird of prey like shape, his mouth opened to show off rows upon rows of teeth, ranging from the length of Kiriya's hand to his forearm. From what he could see, it didn't look like this process caused Graphite any discomfort or pain, just like Poppy, good. Like other bugsters, this form was the same monochrome off-orange, and Kiriya couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. He'd done his homework, and the in-game art of Graphite was gorgeous, with his stark, jewel green scales, patterns of black slashing across him like deft ink strokes.

He was silent throughout the transformation until he finally reared back on powerful digitigrade legs, spreading his wings with a thundering roar, eyes glowing red.

The force of his wings snapping open blew Kiriya back, and he went soaring off the roof.

He gripped tight to his phone, getting ready to teleport when something snagged him by the back of his jacket. Kiriya opened his eyes slowly, looking down to see himself dangling over the edge of the roof.

He felt a tug on his jacket and he started swinging like a prize at the end of a UFO catcher claw as he was carefully moved back to the safety of the roof. Kiriya twisted to look up and Graphite had his jacket held tight between his teeth, poking holes through the leather. He internally groaned, but forgave Graphite, since he could easily regenerate the pixels. It just took time and he didn't want to spend the rest of his lunch break focusing on that.

Graphite gracelessly dropped him to the roof in a heap. He tilted his head and his bright red eyes narrowed, as if to say, "are you happy now?"

Kiriya slowly got to his feet and laughed shakily. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the demonstration, Graph. I'll leave you alone now."

He made a show of dusting himself off and gave Graphite a little salute before heading for the stairwell.


	5. Chapter 5

"Fine." Graphite said suddenly to Kiriya one day.

Kiriya looked up from his laptop and the mess of papers around him blearily. "I'm sorry?"

Graphite blinked surprisedly, but quickly regained his composure and cleared his throat. "I'll do your stupid testing. We can skip the interview phase."

It was Kiriya's turn to be taken aback, and he brought his hands to his face to cover his aching eyes for a moment, centering himself. "I'm planning to still do the interviewing, but I'll do some diagnostics runs on you just to get a physical baseline since you seem so ready. I can start in a couple days. Sorry, something unexpected came up today."

"That's fine," Graphite shrugged, "You know where to find me."

Kiriya nodded dazedly, and then Graphite was gone in a trail of red pixels. After staring at the empty space for a few moments, Kiriya slapped his cheeks to focus again. He needed to take a break, then get right back into solving this absurd bit of code Kuroto decided to put in Gekitotsu Robots. His deadline had just been moved up, after all.

* * *

The interviewing phase with Graphite started out easy. They moved to the roof, the quarantine room, the morgue, or anywhere else within the bounds Kiriya could take Graphite to get some privacy. Kuroto and Parad didn't need to be privy to the details of their little interviews, and the whole point was avoiding them anyways so Graphite could feel free to say anything.

"So, is there anything you wanna tell me to start off?"

"Ask better questions. Isn't the whole point of this is you learning specifics about me?"

"True. Alright, tell me something about the first thing you can remember."

"April 12th, 2011, 22:48. I was born."

"Oookay... You wanna gimme some details?"

"Not particularly, but if I have to..."

Some days, they'd be down in the quarantine room, with Graphite seated on the patient bed, hooked up to it with wires and electrode pads as Kiriya recorded and made notes of his vitals. It had been a disappointing first day when Kiriya discovered the electrodes worked through Graphite's clothes, since they were conductive, being made up of pixels or whatever. Oh well, there were sure to be opportunities to see Graphite shirtless along the way in this process.

Running the tests were fascinating enough on their own to keep him occupied for now, anyway. It wasn't anything like he was used to, Graphite lacked a heartbeat, and didn't breathe out of necessity. He could in theory bleed since he bruised when injured, but drawing blood wasn't as simple as cutting him with a scalpel or sticking a syringe in him. With some thinking outside the box and Graphite berating him because 'wasn't he supposed to be the smart one of CR?' they decided to measure Graphite more like a bacteria colony in a petri dish. Rather than monitoring heart rate and listening to Graphite's breathing, Kiriya would measure the size of the virus colony making up his body, studying the rate of growth and decay of the cells... pixels? There would be time to take samples and definitively find out later.

There were some human adjacent measurements Kiriya could take of Graphite, since they couldn't totally ignore the humanoid aspects of him. So Kiriya took his temperature, only somewhat surprised Graphite was cold-blooded. They also did some basic measurements, like, height and weight in all of his forms, but Kiriya was unsure how necessary they'd be since Graphite probably fluctuated due to his cell/pixel regeneration and decay rates being a bit off from each other.

Sometimes he'd keep the interviews going during the tests, but most of the time they just complained about the Dans and how the Game Disease crisis messed their lives in general.

"Did you know she used to be a huge gamer?"

"What? Seriously?

"Yeah, 's how she got infected. Genm ran this big event on DKHZ's servers and she was the first to beat it... So, I guess that's technically my first memory."

"I know we're not really doing the interview thing today, so can I make a note of that?"

"I mean, isn't that the whole point of this?"

"Yeah, but I wanna make sure you're comfortable in the information you give out."

"It's whatever."

"Mmm... Anyways, how crushing was it to be betrayed by the maker of her favorite game like that?"

"Pff, she was great at games but never paid attention to companies or whatever. Like, Kuroto was so insignificant in her life, I wish it stayed that way when I got made."

"Oh, same."

With formalities out of the way, Kiriya started out with simple questions to dive deeper into getting to know Graphite. His first batch of questions was based on Kuroto's hypotheses on how Graphite would be if he was brought back. Of course, he didn't tell Graphite these were Kuroto's ideas, otherwise, his results would get skewed.

"What happened on... February 18th, 2014?"

"You already asked about that one. Are we gonna keep wasting both our time with testing my memory or are you gonna get on with this?"

"I just wanna be thorough."

"If you were thorough you'd get a calendar and ask me day by day what happened."

"That's boring, though. Me asking you what happened on the same day thirteen times because I can't remember if I've covered it yet is the spice of life."

"That sounds even more boring than a methodical approach."

"Yeah, but getting a rise out of you is the spicy part."

"You literally kicked our relationship off to a bad start, and everything you've done up so far is just making this an even worse impression. I don't _have_ to be here."

"Then what's keeping you here—? Wait, did you just make a bad pun?"

"Next."

"No, not 'next,' what the hell? I didn't even know you could do that."

"...Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime."

"I'm holding you to that."

"I said 'maybe,' it's not binding, you dick."

It was a nice reprieve from regular work, that was for sure. Graphite was interesting, kept him on his toes, and Kiriya found himself actually looking forward to these little Q and A sessions whenever they were both free. As they went on, Kiriya found it was much easier to get used to Graphite's presence when he was just using his resting scowl, or passionately using his body language to emphasize whatever they were talking about.

"What about the earliest memory of Saki's you have?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"It's okay if you don't—"

"No, it's more like... I don't have anything complete. Like, I can remember infecting her and stuff that happened when I was propagating in her since I was present and aware... But anything that's solely hers I can’t... It's not like my regular memories, it's. Distant."

"That's good info..."

"It's more feelings than it is remembering at this point... Sometimes I'll— never mind."

"Sometimes...?"

"I said never mind, _Lazer."_

"Oof, so we're back to Lazer now? My poor lil' heart."

"..."

"Kidding! C'mon don't get so pouty about it. I'll just make a note you're having trouble recalling Saki's memories. That's probably the only real side effect of her deletion so far. Think you'd be down to start some more invasive testing soon? Sample taking and all that?"

"I've been ready since day one, fucking finally."

"Like I said, I want to be thorough. Also, maybe I just like getting to know you."

"...Whatever."

Sometimes, Graphite would still look at him like he was ready to tear his teeth through Kiriya's throat at the drop of a pin. And every time that predatory gleam would catch Kiriya's eye, he realized it didn't affect him as much as it used to. It still sent a slight tremor down his spine or made his throat dry when he caught it. But it was nothing like the reactions he'd have before. Kiriya was either enjoying it more, or getting better at ignoring it and controlling his reactions. He was hoping it was the latter, since the former had some... unfortunate implications about himself he didn't want to dissect right now. Or maybe ever.

"Oi, Kiriya."

"Sorry, you were saying?"

"Let's just call it for today, you keep doing this blank stare and it's freaking me out."

"Oh? Maybe I should do this more often, then, because? Is that a blush I see? Or do I just piss you off so much you're turning red?"

"Fuck off, Lazer."

Whatever their relationship had turned into, Kiriya was confident he could push it in the way he needed, and that, more than anything else, put a smile on his face in the late hours when he finally wrapped up with Graphite for the day. It totally wasn't a feeling of excitement from getting close to Graphite at all. Graphite was just a phase, and soon Kiriya could get him close to the rest of CR, then pat himself on the back for a job well done.


	6. Chapter 6

With more invasive, “potentially stress-inducing” testing introduced to their relationship, Kiriya thought it'd be a weird strain. Graphite didn't seem like the type to enjoy or even want to tolerate being poked and prodded or stuck in medical equipment. But he took it calmly and in stride, much to Kiriya's surprise. They were able to make some pretty interesting discoveries, but progress was slow. Partially because they weren’t totally sure about what they were doing, and partially because they had to do all the testing in the quarantine room, where Parad had easy access and decided to pop in, _often._ He was a huge hassle to the process because he'd be poking around, asking what was what, and even worse, Graphite would clam up about whatever they were talking about. Graphite explained once, that Parad would probably go back and snitch on him to Kuroto if he caught Graphite complaining and it'd be this whole "you're both friends with me, so why can't you be friends" production and Graphite didn't have the strength for actually going through all his feelings about Kuroto to Parad right now. Fortunately, they learned how to make a good team at being Parad deterrents.

"I mean, don't you ever think about how fucked up it is that Hiiro's essentially a knight and Kuroto infected Saki with me?" Graphite's lip pulled up in disgust as he sat on the edge of the patient bed.

"Dude, it is so fucked." Kiriya nodded as he puttered around with various medical equipment, hooking cables up to monitors and ports all along the bed frame. "Did I ever tell you how me being a bike is somehow worse?"

"You mean there's a reason? It's not just bad enough you're a bike—?"

"Hey, Graphite!" A sudden burst of blue and red pixels appeared in the center of the quarantine room.

"Parad." Graphite's face suddenly fell into its resting scowl.

"Lazer's being nice to you, right?" Parad eyed Kiriya over with a bit of disdain.

"Yeah, we're fine." Graphite waved his hand dismissively.

Parad nodded and moved to look over Kiriya's shoulder. "So what are you doing to Graphite this time?"

Kiriya just shrugged him off and grabbed onto Graphite's wrist and the top of his forearm. "You're gonna wanna look away. Ready?"

The dragon gave him a slight nod and he pulled.

"What do you mean— WHAT THE HELL."

With a crackle and hum of electricity, then a sudden crunching and cracking sound like bone and sinew being torn, Graphite's forearm came free.

"Ow."

"You okay there, 'Phite?" Kiriya waved Graphite's forearm around playfully.

"Don't call me 'Phite." Graphite glowered at him.

"How are you okay with this? He just pulled your arm off!" Parad gestured angrily at Kiriya.

"...He asked first," Graphite shrugged. "'S not like it's the whole thing, anyway."

"Lazer, you're terrible."

"He's a big boy," Kiriya patted Graphite on the shoulder with his disembodied hand who scoffed and brushed it away, "He can handle a limb or two being pulled off." Kiriya picked up the modified Game Scope they had trained on Salty's disembodied parts, fiddled with some settings, and thrust it towards Parad "Here, hold this if you're gonna hang around. Might as well help."

"No! Are you out of your mind?" Parad knocked Kiriya's hand away, stepping back a little.

"Hey, this is expensive equipment, you think Emu's got the kind of money to replace something like this?" Kiriya rolled his eyes, exasperated look turning to a conspiratorial smile when he caught Graphite's gaze. "Graphite, hold this. Can you get a good angle?"

Graphite took it with his whole arm, holding it to the stump at his elbow. "...This okay?"

Kiriya took his hand off to the side and angled the scope to point at his inner elbow, "Right there, and... Perfect."

And for the final blow, they looked up at each other and smiled like this was all a big joke they were in on together. It basically was one big inside joke, but they usually didn't acknowledge it unless Parad was around. Nothing seemed to get him more than the two of them sneaking glances at each other with little grins or looking like they were talking without words.

"I can't believe you two." Parad threw his hands up dramatically and teleported away.

Kiriya and Graphite were left in silence for a few moments, staring at each other with bated breath. Kiriya took a quick look around the room and broke out into a grin.

"He gone?"

Graphite leaned over to check behind Kiriya, "Seems like it."

"Okay, finally. You ready?" Kiriya sighed, holding up Graphite's forearm

Graphite got the Game Scope back into position and nodded minutely, "Yeah."

"Alright, annnd... now."

Kiriya pushed Graphite's forearm to the joint at the wrong angle and it lit up, just like in the protogashat world. Kiriya tried to hold it in position for as long as he could, but eventually, Graphite's arm twisted out of his grasp of its own accord, allowing the limb to attach on as it should be. For a moment, Kiriya saw the skin and muscles twisting and growing like vines or tentacles, tangling with each other and straining before they set into the right position with a sickening _crack._

"Ha ha ha! That is so _freaky!"_ Kiriya said breathlessly.

"Shut up and pay attention. You got what you needed? 'Cause I'm not doing this again." Graphite handed him the game scope back.

Kiriya turned to check the monitor they set up near Salty, noticing a huge spike of virus activity on the recording. "Yup, you did great. I'll let you know what all those squiggly lines mean when I figure 'em out."

Graphite stayed silent as he stood to leave looking at Kiriya with a brow raised judgmentally.

"One last thing before you go?" Kiriya moved in front of him quickly, one of his more charming grins in place.

Graphite let out a little frustrated puff of air, "What?"

"You really okay with this whole, excluding Parad from examinations like this? It doesn't make it awkward to hang out with him all the time? I know he means a lot to you and we can always complain about Kuroto other times."

Graphite's brow furrowed and his lips parted slightly in surprise. He seemed lost for a moment, then quickly regained his composure but with a resigned edge to it, "I think he means more to me than I do to him. And he'll have Kuroto in the end if anything... bad happens between us I guess. Kuroto cares way more than it seems on the outside. He'll be in the worst, best hands," Graphite shrugged. "We done here?"

Kiriya chewed on his lip for a moment, wanting to say something, but he wasn't sure what to offer. Graphite seemed content with that answer and Kiriya didn't want to stick his neck too far into the Genm trio's business. He just offered Graphite a smile and nodded.

He moved to leave again and Kiriya made his way over to the monitor, still feeling like he should say something. Graphite took a few steps away from the patient bed and Kiriya quickly called out to stop him.

"Hey, 'Phite?" Kiriya didn't look up from the monitor.

"You're on thin fucking ice, Kujo. _What?"_

"Thanks for agreeing to this. I'm having a lot of fun." He finally looked up at Graphite, letting himself smile genuinely because, like working with Poppy and still getting away with shit, he knew honesty or slight deviations from the truth would be his most powerful weapons in luring Graphite to befriend him. 

Graphite fixed him with one of his usual glares, but this one had much more intent hidden behind it. It was searching, burning, trying to find the joke or hidden meaning, but Kiriya made sure he wouldn't find anything. He bared his teeth a little as he seemed to grow frustrated with what he saw in Kiriya's face.

"Whatever." 


	7. Chapter 7

Kiriya finally got his and Taiga's schedules lined up and he was practically vibrating with excitement about getting Graphite in a CT scan.

"Cut that out." Taiga demanded, pointedly looking forward.

"What?" Kiriya glanced at him then took stock of himself to see what he was doing wrong— Oh. That was new. He was actually glowing, the edges of his form lit up with a familiar yellowish-amber.

The glow seemed to die down as he noticed it and Taiga finally looked at him again.

"You're way too excited about this."

Kiriya huffed, "It's been a long time coming okay?"

They gave Graphite the rundown on how CT scans worked, and he just sighed dramatically through it. "I was going to get a medical degree, remember?" He pointedly kept his eyes on Kiriya the whole time, burning holes into his skull. Kiriya and Taiga shared a look, not entirely sure what to make of it but Kiriya figured, as much as he said he was over it, Graphite might still have hang-ups over what went down with him and Taiga. Hiiro, too. They really needed some kind of group therapy, but it sadly wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Taiga seemed a little unnerved by the tension between Graphite's glare and Kiriya's nonchalance but ignored it in favor of getting this done as soon as possible. They got Graphite into the CT scanner no problem, and everything was going smoothly. Of course, until the readout on the computer glitched out and there was a loud bang from inside the machine.

Wasting no time, Kiriya teleported into the room and slid the table along the rails to get Graphite out.

"Are you okay?"

Graphite just shoved him aside and teleported away, Kiriya catching how his face looked slightly pale with a faint sheen of sweat across his skin in the milliseconds he got to see. Kiriya stared at the empty space Graphite left for a few moments, then turned to look at Taiga through the observation glass, shrugging helplessly.

Taiga shut the machine down while Kiriya climbed inside to see if Graphite caused any damage. Surprisingly, nothing was dented or broken. He must've hit the inside just enough to make a noise above the hum of the machine but not obliterate the walls. Kiriya had seen Graphite bury his fist into concrete before, so this was curious. As Graphite had said, he'd technically been going for a medical degree before Zero Day, so he had a much better concept of how expensive and important this kind of equipment was than say, Parad, making sense as to why he was careful with it. But he must've been exceptionally precise with his strength otherwise they'd be looking at a hole blown through the CT scanner. It made Kiriya pause, wondering if there was more to this than he was seeing, but he was taken out of that train of thought quickly by Taiga sliding him out of the machine.

Taiga took a brief look around as well and relievedly noted there wasn't any immediately visible damage. Taiga waved him off so he could run diagnostics on the machine and not have to worry about entertaining Kiriya. He rolled his eyes, pointing out he wasn't Parad, and Taiga gave him a serious, exhausted look deadpanning, "I know."

Damn, bug boy must've really been putting him through his paces. If it wasn't Nico following him around, it was Emu's kid, and if neither of them were around, Kiriya was sure some other random, lost teen or young adult would find Taiga and latch onto him for entertainment and learning life lessons together.

Kiriya bounced from the radiology department, teleporting to the place he was sure Graphite would be after something like this. Somewhere he could feel like he had all the freedom in the world after being shoved into a tiny, cramped space.

Just like he thought, Graphite was standing at the edge of the hospital roof, and Kiriya touched down gently a few meters away from him.

"Go away."

"I'm sorry," Kiriya winced, "I didn't think to ask if you had claustrophobia or anything like that. It was dumb of me."

"Shut up," Graphite moved further down the roof, "I'm not claustrophobic or anything."

Kiriya felt a retort on his tongue but bit his lip to hold it back. He let out a slow exhale and raised his voice so Graphite could still hear him clearly at the new distance, "You don't have to tell me what happened in there. I just wanna make sure you're okay."

"I will be if you just leave me alone." Graphite snapped.

Kiriya held his hands up placatingly, slowly backing away and giving him space. He was about to turn and leave through the stairwell when Graphite let out an aggravated huff.

"Wait..." He grumbled. "I'll... Listen, that whole thing was just... It was a lot, okay? I—"

Kiriya held up a hand to cut him off, waiting to see if Graphite would steamroll the gesture, meaning he genuinely wanted to talk about it, or pause if he felt obligated. He looked like he was about to keep going for a second, but his shoulders dropped and there was something similar to relief in his eyes. Kiriya gave him a half-smile, "Like I said, you don't have to tell me what happened in there. Just wanted to make sure you're okay."

Graphite inhaled audibly and nodded, "I am now."

He was still scowling, maybe upset from what happened that made him run off, or from feeling like he failed their game by retreating. Kiriya wasn't sure which, but he had something that might placate Graphite either way by giving him a new challenge. A bonus stage, as the kids would say. He made his way over to where Graphite was standing, keeping a bit of distance between them, but it was the closest he'd been all day.

"Hey, I think I have an idea on how to do scans and not freak you out."

Graphite impatiently raised an eyebrow at him, eyes narrowed dangerously. He might've allowed Kiriya to stick around but he had no problem reminding him that could change very quickly.

Kiriya thought back to that joke he made about Graphite being Dragon Jesus on Christmas, realizing it might be more apt than he initially thought. He didn't know much about Christian myths, but one in particular about Lucifer trying to convince Jesus to jump off a cliff stuck out to him right now. And standing on the edge of the hospital roof with Graphite at his side, trying to convince him to make a metaphorical leap of faith, he realized he might just be Lucifer in this messed-up game religion Kuroto created.

"I just need you to trust me. I won't put you back in there until we can do some test runs on my hypothesis, okay? But basically, I want to get you to a place where you can just calm down and sleep during it. You don't have to agree to this, but I can regulate the temperature of the bed in CR, so I was thinking we could test the waters for an ideal temperature to knock you right out and recreate that before you go in the machine again."

And this is where the leap of faith came in. Falling asleep around enemies for Graphite meant getting a swift kick to the face... Or more accurately, a greatsword to the tail, and a hunting horn to the skull, and a round of specialized bullets from a heavy bowgun... Drago Knight Hunter was kind of horrifyingly brutal to the players and its characters, Kiriya quickly realized while looking into it. And while he knew he wasn't an enemy to Graphite anymore, they weren't exactly friends either. So he understood if falling asleep just a room away from Kiriya and Taiga, conscious and watching him intently for a few minutes, was the last thing Graphite wanted to do.

"I only say this because I'm basing this whole idea on the fact that reptiles hibernate and you can sleep in game," Kiriya allowed himself a little chuckle to try lighten the mood, "And I don't know what the real-life equivalents of parashroom and sleep herb are, so I don't think I could just make one of those sedative smoke bombs and throw one in the room with you.

Graphite seemed to bristle at the idea, and Kiriya thought it was game over. He was about to offer to not bother with any scanning beyond what the game scopes could do ever again, but Graphite surprised him when a corner of his mouth curled back and he shook his head, "Yeah probably not. I'm a little impressed and mostly creeped out with how much you know about my game mechanics."

Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, Kiriya shrugged with a grin, eyebrows raised, "I wanted to be well informed before working with you. So I may or may not have spent a couple of days reading all of the game guides for Drago Knight Hunter I could find online."

"You're unbelievable," Graphite squinted at him, the barest hint of amusement playing across his face.

"Guess you could say I like being prepared. So, same time tomorrow? I think we both need some rest after today."

"Guess so," Graphite examined Kiriya for a few moments, "Yeah, whatever works. Just come find me when you need me," he made shooing motions, turning away from Kiriya to go sit on the adjacent edge of the roof.

"See you then."


	8. Chapter 8

"This is a stupid idea," Graphite said from the patient bed.

"You were so impressed with me yesterday, though!" Kiriya smirked up at him from the control panel at the foot of the bed.

Graphite fidgeted impatiently under the scratchy blanket Kiriya had thrown over him, glaring at the ceiling. Chuckling, Kiriya left him to it and adjusted the temperature, "Kay, lemme know when it feels like it's getting colder. Takes a minute or so to change temperatures.”

Graphite just gave him a low grunt of acknowledgment and Kiriya chuckled, moving over to the desk to bring the chair back with him. They sat there in silence together, with only the low hum of the bed working filling the space between them.

A soft exhale of "oh," interrupted the low noise of the machine and Kiriya looked up at Graphite, "It's cooler," he mumbled, already sounding sleepy.

"Okay, good to know," Kiriya noted the current temperature down, then rested his elbows carefully over the control panel, curving his body away to not set anything off.

"How are you thinking of making this work in the CT scanner when you figure out the temperature?" Graphite asked in a low voice.

"Well, initially I thought of layering a bunch of medical ice packs on you," Kiriya shook with a soundless chuckle at Graphite's responding scoff, "But I think lowering the thermostat in the room will do just fine."

"I could've told you that, idiot."

"Ooh, finally giving me a nickname, huh? We've become so close lately," Kiriya leaned back to put a hand to his chest and swoon dramatically. "I'm touched."

Graphite couldn't possibly see Kiriya from his position, but he made a little grumble in response, and Kiriya thought he could hear a slight smile in it. They sat in silence for a few more minutes until Kiriya deemed it had been long enough for the temperature to have fully taken effect on Graphite, "How you doin', Graph?" He asked.

"Sorta tired..." Was the reply, Graphite's voice was a touch husky from sleepiness and Kiriya bit his lip to curb his grin. It was cute. "Maybe you can go a degree down or whatever." He mumbled, adamantly trying to still sound testy about this whole experiment.

"Roger," Kiriya said, adjusting the temperature and letting the silence stretch out between them once more.

With the low hum of the bed cooling off between them and the generally quiet and calm atmosphere of the patient room at this time, Kiriya shifted his chair as silently as possible to a buttonless corner of the bed frame to lean on. He slumped forward a little, letting his chest and belly rest across the machinery, feeling a little sleepy himself. Kiriya got so relaxed, he almost forgot to look at the time for his check-in, scooting over to the monitor frantically to see how long it'd been.

"Graphite?" He stage whispered up to the other bugster, "How're you doing?"

There was no response, and Kiriya got up to move to the side of the bed. Graphite was out cold, kind of literally. Kiriya waved a hand in front of his face to see how deeply asleep he was and Graphite's face scrunched up a little, his body shifting slightly under the blanket. He made a note to try one degree lower the next time they tried this and leaned away to give Graphite some space. In his shuffling, some hair had fallen into his face and Kiriya's found himself instinctively reaching out to brush it away before he was pulling back like he'd been burned—

"So that's the whole problem," Kiriya explained, sitting upside down in a desk chair, with his back resting against the seat, head hanging off the edge, and his legs against the backrest, "He just looks really calm and it's all nice and like? Did I tell you he—"

"Smiled in his sleep today, and it was so fucking cute," Nico said in unison with Kiriya, effectively cutting him off, "Yeah. You might've mentioned that one or seven times, not that I've been counting," She finally raised her head from her Genmboy to give him a long-suffering look, "So, when's the wedding?"

"Ha, ha, I know I have a thing for him, can we drop it please?"

 _"Oh."_ She grinned at him incredulously, "Ohhh, ho, ho, _ho,"_ She chuckled, voice low, each syllable sounding like a jab. "Dude, you have waaayy more than a "thing" for him. I've seen you have crushes on the other employees before, what you have for Graphite is not a "thing," okay?"

He let out a frustrated sigh, "It is. Okay? We've been over this."

"Okay, so your fling with Masato?"

"It's the same thing, Nico."

"Yorucchan?"

"Oh, don't you two seem familiar, now."

"She's cute, what can I say? Anyways, you're taking us off-topic, I didn't even find out about Kazuma until like a _month_ after it ended."

"Your point?"

"You didn't even talk about him? You tell me everything about your torrid love life, or lack of one, if we're honest, ever since we started working together. And the fact that it took me that long to find out? Kazuma wasn't even worth my time? And you didn't even give me much beyond: "she's kinda got top energy, do you think she's into pegging?" and "oh he's cute," for the other two. And both of those things you had for them lasted like, a week to a month?" She held her hands out in a "see?" gesture, "Now you've been doing these sleep experiments with Graphite for what? Three days just to "make sure you get consistent results" and you haven't shut the fuck up about him to me. Honestly, you haven't shut up about him since you started hanging out more."

Kiriya's about to retort when Nico brought her hand to her chin, looking up exaggeratedly, and he knew she wasn’t done just yet. Grimacing hard, he braced himself for another bout of Nico trying to connect dots that weren't there.

"By the way, when we were still in Chronicle, didn't you fight us on keeping Graphite alive?" She asked faux-thoughtfully.

"We're done here," Sliding down the chair to touch his hands to the ground, Kiriya started pushing off the ground to get away from this conversation.

Nico jumped from her seat, boots clomping against the floor as she dashed over and caught the chair by the backrest, "Not so fast!"

Kiriya groaned but let her spin him back around and drive the chair to be closer to her couch. She flopped back down onto it, tucking her feet up under her and grinned, "Y'know trying to run away when I ask a purely innocent question like that seems _very telling_ that you've had feelings for Graphite before all this.

"I've literally never met with him except for a couple of fights before I died and that one time I kicked him and ruined his assassination plot for Masamune."

"So, what? You were vouching for us to not kill him because Emu said so?"

"We talked it over like rational adults and thought it was a good enough plan to present to the rest of you, but you all were already doing the 'grab your torch and pitchforks' thing."

"How's stuff with Emu, by the way? Is Graphite like, the rebound— Fuck you, did you quote Shrek?"

Kiriya just shrugged, but Nico knew he knew from his little smirk, but his face turned more despairing as he thought about her first question, "Okay, the whole thing with Emu is way more complicated now that he has a son-slash-younger-brother-slash-bugster-clone, who's best friends with or maybe dating the guy I hate. On top of that, he's doing the official CR doctor thing where he's just throwing himself into his work in hopes of making up for his mistakes, so he doesn't really want to make time for dating at the moment. Like, maybe there was a chance, but I died, and he doesn't seem interested anymore. Also, how is Graphite the rebound if I attempted dating three people between Emu and him?"

"You weren't serious about any of them! They were just to like, fill a void in your life, or something, I guess. But the way you look at Graphite sometimes, it just... It's..."

"The way you and Poppy look at each other—?"

A buff bear plushie launched at him, smacking him right in the face "Shut up! I haven't asked her yet!"

Kiriya just laughed, eager to turn the conversation around on Nico, because he wasn't good at this. Talking about his feelings. How was he supposed to explain to her that the one person, his whole world, was gone forever because of him? That yes, Emu reminded him of Jungo a little bit and it had been easy to latch onto at the time, but he'd changed. And even looking back Kiriya wasn't sure how he thought they were so similar, because Jungo was honestly so, so different. He knew he had to keep moving on, because Taiga and Hiiro were firsthand examples of what he could've been. Maybe cynical, manipulative and self-deprecating with a "nothing's wrong" exterior wasn't much better, but what could he do? What could any of them do until almost everyone who'd been lost was revived and they'd given as much of themselves as they could to solving the aftermath of the crisis?

"Seriously, though, you should ask him out," Nico's voice finally brought him back to the conversation since she was finally done with fuming over how she and Poppy were a totally different case, "I think he likes you, too."

Kiriya chuckled, hating how some kind of emotion he didn't want to examine flared up in his chest when she said that, "I think you mean, likes me best out of the people he's being forced to socialize with."

Nico rolled her eyes hard, "You're hopeless."

"You too! We're in this together as a couple of pining idiots."

"Yeah, we're so fucking stupid and gay."

"We are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nico throws one of these at him ([pic](https://i.imgflip.com/27kj2r.jpg))


	9. Chapter 9

"Hey, it's time to scream at "God" for his mistakes," Kiriya slapped a folder down in front of Asuna as she prepped her briefcase for what looked like a meeting with big boss Hinata and other members of the Ministry of Health.

"Can it wait? I have to be somewhere in five." She cringed, glasses slipping down her nose just a bit.

"Just pick a scan, any scan, you'll understand why I need to yell at him in a few seconds."

She sighed heavily, holding her hand up in a loose fist to her lips as she psyched herself up before flipping the folder open and pulling out a random sheet. Asuna held it up to the light with both hands and immediately whipped it back into the pile. She inhaled sharply, hands hovering near her face before they came together in a prayer fold in front of her lips. Quietly, unmoving, unblinking, she stared at the table for what felt like a solid minute, before she slammed her hands down.

"SO WE WERE RIGHT?" she screeched, Kiriya winced but nodded when he recovered. "They're the same as ours!" She grabbed another one, holding it to the light.

"Yup! We _have_ bones and muscles! But, we don't have fucking organs!" He said in a showman-like voice, complete with jazz hands, "Unless you count blood vessels and I have no idea how that works unless our hypothesis is on point, because the way Graphite's are laid out also vaguely look like circuit boards!

"I'm... I..." She spluttered. "I—I have to go to this meeting, I'll see you right after and we can talk about this. Unless you wanna..." She subtly jerked her head in the general direction of the DoReMiFa cabinet.

"Eh," Kiriya grinned half-heartedly, "We'll see about that. Anyways, get going, see you later," He fist-bumped her and she dashed out the door.

Kiriya barely had a second to breathe before the last person he wanted to talk to interrupted his thoughts.

"You know, it's very rude to talk about someone like they're not there."

"I'll acknowledge your presence if and when it suits me, _God."_ he said with all the malice his body could muster.

"You've been working at Genm for a while now, how is it suiting you, Dr. Kujo? Learn anything interesting about video games while you've been there?" Kuroto grinned enigmatically.

"Is this question going to tie into why bugsters have internal, humanoid anatomy or not? Because I'd rather wait 'til Asuna's back for this conversation." Kiriya pinched the bridge of his nose, shoulders slumping.

"Well, you're the anatomy expert, Dr. Kujo. Or at least I'd hope so, given your former profession, if it was that at all," Kuroto sneered, "Making characters for video games follows the same properties of human anatomy, you need bones and muscles to animate a body. Otherwise, it's just a corpse. Just like you were—"

"I'm too done to be hearing this right now. You don't fucking program actual humanoid bones and muscles into your characters. You're right, I did learn shit from working at your _former_ company. Not that I want bugster bones to work like computer rigs, but also what the fuck."

"God's work is done in mysterious ways..."

"Oh okay, good. You have no idea why the virus does this either," Kiriya interrupted quickly, moving to leave.

"Don't you think it's strange the virus can't take on a humanoid shape until it has some kind of human data to access?" Kuroto said, finally being as straightforward as Kiriya could get him to be.

"Okay, yeah _I guess._ The virus only knows how to do basic shapes until it gets new data and learns how to make more complex ones," He sighed exaggeratedly, "Still doesn't explain why organs don't form, since blood passes through the whole body,"

"Well, it's not like code or bacteria needs a human organ system to process energy, just a network to run through," Kuroto nodded smugly, like he was proud he knew something Kiriya didn’t, and Kiriya smirked back, suddenly looking excited and not as exhausted as before.

"Thanks for the confirmation on Poppy’s and my hypothesis, God," He winked.

Realizing he'd been tricked out of information, Kuroto started to throw a tantrum, jumping up to scream at Kiriya through the bars, and Kiriya just threw the sheet they kept for the express purpose of quieting Kuroto down over the machine. He made a dusting off motion with his hands and strolled towards the door, picking up the folder of scans on the way out.


	10. Chapter 10

"Never thought I'd find you here," Kiriya said as he set down his papers and laptop on his old desk in the morgue offices. It wasn't his anymore, but he seemed to have good timing with whoever was using it now, since they'd never seen each other. The only reason he knew it wasn't abandoned, left without a new medical examiner, was the signs of life, photos of family, scatterings of case notes, and the occasional abandoned coffee cup. And today, there was a Graphite, sitting in the desk chair, looking a little lost.

"Didn't feel like going to the roof today."

"Yeah, the weather's been pretty gloomy lately, huh?" Kiriya pulled up Nisshi's chair and sat across from him, "Well, I guess it's good I found you, I was going to tell you what I found from the game scope readings I got off you."

"What are you doing here then?"

Kiriya waved the sheaf of papers he brought with him, setting them down on the desk and mixing them in with the mess of other files across it, "Accidentally took some police reports last time we interviewed down here, just wanted to return them, then I was planning to find you and tell you about your results."

Graphite nodded, not exactly making eye contact and giving him a little "hm," in response.

"I can wait to tell you about this stuff," Kiriya picked up his laptop and gestured to the door with a thumb.

Graphite just shrugged, "It's fine, you can tell me now."

Kiriya nodded, leaning back in his seat and opened up his laptop, "Well, remember when you were pretty sure you weren't infected with Gamedeus anymore?" He spun the laptop to show the readings, with two separate cell growth patterns highlighted in red and yellow, "The red one's you, and this" he pointed to the huge spike in activity of the yellow chart, "Is Gamedeus cells."

"So the cell growth spike happened when you put my arm back on?"

"Bingo," Kiriya snapped, tilting his hand into a finger gun, "And since cells need energy to propagate..."

"Salty's still inert because he doesn't have enough energy," Graphite leaned forward, seemingly snapped out of whatever funk he'd been in, "So you just have to figure out how to re-energize his cells and he can snap back together like I did."

"Well, not exactly... Poppy's been monitoring Salty for a while and there doesn't seem to be any Gamedeus cells present in him. It might just be because he got deleted, or maybe it's because you infected yourself. We were thinking of trying to revive Motorz or Anabura to see if they can pull themselves together, and make sure it's just a deleted bugster thing, then check them for trace amounts of Gamedeus cells."

"You think we all have... or had, in Salty's case, trace amounts from being part of Gamedeus in the final fight?"

"You're on fire today, damn." Kiriya grinned at him, and Graphite just stared unamusedly back, "Anyways, Poppy's thinking you're an outlier case, too, since you infected yourself. We're in that category, too..."

Graphite tilted his head concernedly at the last bit. Oh, he might not have heard about the whole, Poppy exploding herself into medicine thing, then. "There's a 'but' somewhere in there," Graphite crossed his arms and leaned back.

"Yeah. Poppy wants to keep trying to get a go-ahead from the Ministry of Health to revive more bugsters, but, based on her last meeting with them, it's not a very favored opinion among other members besides Hinata, who Emu and Poppy have wrapped around their finger because they're like, kids he's never had or something. Like, we _could_ just do it, but if someone rats us out, comes from the Ministry to check, or Anabura or Motorz run out and start infecting people because we didn't get to explain the situation to them, everyone might just have to get stuck in the DoReMiFa cabinet." Kiriya grimaced hard at the idea.

"They couldn't just, bring in a DKHZ cabinet for me to have by myself, could they?" Graphite didn't look too jazzed either, and Kiriya shrugged, “Maybe.”

"So what about me? You just brought me back, so am I technically a secret?"

"Poppy fought very hard to get you cleared with the Ministry, and unknowingly, you made it an easy argument given how calm you've been since we pulled you out. And I think helping her out on her shifts was a big plus." Graphite ducked his head embarrassedly.

"But yeah, back to your big question, I have an idea on how to get Salty back together. Who is also cleared, by the way, since we said he'd be helpful in bringing back patients and is currently very inert." Graphite leaned the slightest bit in, "I'm theorizing the Gamedeus cells regenerate based on how much energy their host can put out. Stronger host, stronger regeneration reaction, basically. You, being Level 99, vs. Salty at Level 20 and also inert due to deletion, have a huge difference in energy. And I'm thinking, we can essentially give Salty a temporary "level boost," if you will, by pumping electricity into him then shoot some of the virus at him, giving the cells enough energy to feed off of and then pull him together."

Graphite sat wide-eyed through the whole explanation, almost gasping excitedly, then seemingly realizing something and visibly deflating, "Wait, how long will he be able to sustain himself then? If our power levels are so different?"

Kiriya gave him an encouraging little grin, "Yeah, I thought about that, too. I don't know how well this will work, but I was thinking if we could hook him up to a stable power source, like essentially make an IV drip to wean the virus off the extra power levels and get them used to Salty's regular output, which I'm sure will be able to sustain them if he's functional and alive again. Also gotta make sure his cultures are smaller than yours, so he might have a smaller range on the whole regeneration thing. But this is a lot of future stuff since we don't even know if my idea's gonna work."

With a pout and an impatient growl, Graphite leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. Kiriya couldn't hold back a chuckle and tried to smile apologetically, "C'mon, Graph, one step at a time, yeah?" He groaned internally, but hoped it would lift Graphite's mood a bit, "Otherwise you're gonna make this whole process _drag-on."_

Graphite blinked at him confusedly, then uncrossed his arms, bringing one up to cover his face, smothering a chortle into his hand.

Kiriya closed his laptop and rested his chin in his hands, looking at Graphite mock adoringly, "I remember you liked bad puns, so... You wanna tell me what the story is behind that?"

He let out a cackle, moving his hand away to rest on his collarbone, "That was so terrible," and he was _grinning._

Kiriya felt something well up in his chest and he was hit with the overwhelming realization, _fuck,_ Nico was right. He was into Graphite way more than he thought. Like, he did that. He made him smile like that with a shitty pun and now Kiriya was feeling things and _fuck._

With a sharp exhale, Graphite gave him one last, little smirk, before his expression became something more neutral, slightly sad, distant. "Long story short, Hiiro."

Kiriya bit his lip to keep from shouting because Hiiro was the last person on Earth Kiriya expected to be making bad puns.

"It's hazy, but I remember him telling stupid jokes when we first met," and Kiriya's breath caught in his throat because Graphite's whole demeanor changed to something softer. He wouldn't meet Kiriya's eyes, but the look on his face was fond but somber, and Kiriya realized he wasn't looking entirely at Graphite anymore, part of this was whatever influence Saki had in his creation. "He was funny, tried to cheer me up with them if I was down," He shrugged slightly, "Then after midterms hit, he just got so focused on being a doctor he forgot... well, everything else. Still like 'em though. Reminds me of happier times."

Graphite finally met his eyes and Kiriya realized he was in so much trouble. The look Graphite was giving him, troubled and a little lost like how he looked when Kiriya first came in, made him want to just reach out and comfort him somehow. But he didn't do any of that, just offered an encouraging smile, as genuinely as he could while he dealt with his internal crisis.

"Thanks for telling me?" He tried. "I can try to tell more if any come to mind."

"Don't go out of your way," Graphite's eyes hardened and he was back. "But if it comes out, it's whatever."

"I'll keep it in mind," Kiriya nodded, “I still don’t believe you about Hiiro telling jokes, though.”

Graphite looked at him hard for a few moments, then his lip twitched up like a smile, "Thanks... for talking with me," he mumbled, then disappeared in a flash of pixels.

Letting out a sharp breath, Kiriya slumped back into the chair, staring up at the ceiling, trying to process what just happened. His mind was whirling, and he got up, opening Nisshi's desk and slipping his laptop inside. After closing the drawer with a solid _thunk_ he teleported up to the roof.

It was much worse than he thought it would be, pouring rain and cold. The wind wasn't too bad, but it was still horrible conditions to be out. Spring weather was like that, sometimes, though. He moved to the edge of the roof, staring down at the seven-story drop.

Sometimes he came up here and did something stupid when he needed to clear his head. Throwing himself off the roof was that very stupid thing. Something about giving all control over to gravity on top of the adrenaline (did he even have that anymore?) rush of free-falling helped him stop thinking when he was running himself in circles or having trouble processing. He'd grown used to harrowing situations when diving into gashats with Poppy, so he was pretty good at timing when to teleport away.

He let his feet wobble on the edge for a little bit, just trying to get his body to relax before pushing off and letting go.

The time between the roof and halfway to the ground stretched out to eternity but also came way too soon. But Kiriya let himself teleport back to the roof before he even reached the third floor of Seito. When he got back up to the roof, he didn't even bother landing, just flopped backward, lying face up in the water pooling on the roof, huge drops of water pelting him as he stared up into the stormy skies, trying to process the idea of liking someone and wanting to let them in.

* * *

"Nishiwaki, did you move our chairs during lunch?" the new medical examiner, Masaki, looked around the morgue office confusedly.

Nisshi used his height to peek over their shoulder easily and saw his chair moved from its desk to occupy part of Masaki's, both turned inward, like their previous occupants had been deep in conversation, and their desk looked in more disarray than before. They were like Kiriya in that sense, but less dry-erase boards with indecipherable scribblings and rough doodles of crime scene recreations while they were figuring out a case. He didn't make a comment on their desk, wondering if they even noticed, and slid past them to his desk.

"I didn't, maybe someone came in here while we were out at lunch," and he had a pretty good idea who.

Masaki ran an exasperated hand through their hair, messing it up a little before getting to work organizing their desk. Nisshi dragged his chair back to his workspace and opened the file drawer. Just like he thought, there was Kiriya’s little laptop hidden in the back.

Even though Kiriya had been announced dead, he knew it would take more than just a video game virus outbreak to kill him. Knowing Kiriya, he'd probably used the epidemic to fake his death to do more covert things with his investigation into it. Nisshi's proof Kiriya was still alive were the snacks left on his desk, with cryptic post-it notes like "Hope Riko's doing better, I'd say, say hi for me, but that seems weird, right?" and "Eat more, stupid, my moms would cry if they saw you" written on them. No name, but always had a little flower scribbled at the end like a signature. He hated to admit it, but he missed him. Missed him and Jungo. Missed _them._

"Huh, maybe the maintenance team is hanging out in here before they finish cleaning this floor," Masaki offered as they finally got their papers in a neat stack, "I don't like thinking about random people just coming in here and going through our stuff, so I hope it's them." They shuddered visibly.

"Yeah, could be," Nisshi said absentmindedly.

'What am I going to do with you, Kiriya?' He thought as he slid the drawer closed before Masaki could look over and see.

Even though he couldn't hang out with Kiriya anymore, it was nice to have this "ghost" of him around.


	11. Chapter 11

Acting like everything was normal turned out to be incredibly difficult and Kiriya hadn't felt this stressed out since the bugster outbreak. Asuna had some time to pop in and work with him today, being a thankfully steadying presence and helping to distract him from his confusing feelings about Graphite. He kind of wanted to ask her for some advice, but he didn't get a chance to, since Graphite's growing companionship with both of them meant he started sitting in with them whenever he felt like it. And of everyone who could've chosen to sit in with them, it just had to be the object of Kiriya's stress and affection, making it more than a little hard to control his stress levels.

Usually, when he and Poppy would work together, it was very hard to ignore Graphite, and in turn, harder to hide how he wanted to keep glancing over to him. Most of their work was sitting at the meeting room table with Poppy as herself or Asuna, and discussing things the Ministry was saying, recovery efforts, work jazz. All of which slowly turned into catching up as they scribbled in edits on proposals and doodled on the backs of rejected notes, so not much to focus on. And all the while Graphite sat and watched them, pretending to be bored but listening in, making it hard for Kiriya to ignore his stare.

But today, they were in the patient room, and it was going to be all about Salty.

Graphite didn't always sit in, and maybe the real reason Graphite decided to hang around today was to keep an eye on them while they messed around with Salty's sliced up body parts. He was extremely protective of the rest of the Bugsters, so it made sense if he wanted to make sure they didn't fuck up, and if they did, well... he did promise to snap Kiriya's spine in half.

"Here goes nothing," Kiriya shrugged, charging up the defibrillator pads.

Next to him, Asuna readied Masamune's old bugvisor, loaded up with the Gamedeus virus, aiming it at Salty's ankle joint.

"Should I still say clear?"

"Just apply the defibrillator, Kiriya." She lowered the bugvisor to give him an exhausted look. 

Kiriya shrugged, pressing the pads down, administering the shock, and he heard the bugvisor activate. But something was going horribly wrong, Kiriya felt a pulling sensation usually associated with teleporting, and he looked down to his arms to see them dissolving into pixels.

"Oh waitwaitwait!" Asuna frantically squeaked, and Kiriya's body reformed, while Salty's entire right leg got sucked into the bugvisor.

He turned to Asuna, completely rattled, gripping the defibrillator pads for dear life, and she was already apologizing to him rapidly, putting the bugvisor far away from her on the table Salty was strewn across. "Sorry! Sorry, I'm so used to using the vacuum function on Kuroto.

"Do you want me to do that part?" His voice cracked.

"No, I got it this time, for sure," She nodded, hands up in a defensive position, and shaking assertively like she was trying to reassure herself that she did, in fact, have it.

A shuffling sound drew their attention to Graphite sitting on the patient bed, shifted from his earlier lounging position to something half ready to pounce, eyes trained on them intently. They shared a nervous look and turned their full attention back to Salty, getting his leg out of the bugvisor, where it landed back on the table with a _clunk._

They jolted as most of the pieces fell apart again, but the ankle was solidly attached to the bottom slice of Salty's shin, a silver glow fading from it as left the bugvisor. With tentative, trembling hands, Asuna picked up the pieces and tugged on Salty's shin and foot. They came apart with some effort and reattached easily with the same silver light running up and down the "veins" surrounding the joint.

A stunned silence filled the room, sitting there, stagnant for a while before Kiriya and Asuna fully processed what they'd just accomplished.

"It worked!" She screamed, and Kiriya dropped the defibrillator pads and grabbed her hands, shaking them excitedly. They cheered and jumped around for a bit, relishing in the discovery before they went back into business mode.

"Okay, let's get the rest of him assembled!" Asuna aimed the bugvisor at the next part of Salty's leg.

They worked intently for the next half hour, managing to get Salty's whole lower leg reconstructed and agreeing they probably needed a more reliable power source than the defibrillator for patients and other bugsters if they got cleared to operate on others. But just as they were getting to the knee, the game scope monitoring Salty started beeping.

Kiriya reached over to stop the noise and shuffled to the screen they had it hooked up to.

"Oh, we gotta stop." He moved over for Asuna to see.

She hummed in thought, "His cells are under a lot of stress... Maybe we have to space out the introduction of Gamedeus cells, do it in batches so Salty has time to acclimate. Let's give him a week to see how he does, and we can try doing half of the upper leg next time? And we did kinda give him an accidental huge dose of the Gamedeus cells on his foot."

"Yeah we should keep a close eye on that," Kiriya nodded. "We should start looking for an "IV drip" for him, too. Keep him juiced so Gamedeus has enough to feed on while all those virus cultures are getting to know each other."

"Yeah we should have a generator or something coming in soon," Asuna picked up her clipboard to start looking for her schedule.

"We did good," Kiriya sighed relievedly.

A soft sigh from behind him made him turn back to Graphite, looking a little tense and worried, but mainly back at it again with his stoic resting face. Kiriya gave him a smile and a thumbs-up, and he seemed to relax the slightest bit at it. They did really good.


	12. Chapter 12

Graphite had gotten into the habit of reading fashion magazines ever since Poppy handed him one. It was a little weird to watch him at first, but honestly, who were any of them to make him feel weird over something he seemed to enjoy? Plus, it gave him something else to do besides getting snappy with CR when he was feeling bored. And that's how Kiriya found him today, sitting at the table with an issue of Junon held up to his face.

Kiriya took the seat across from him and set up his laptop, Graphite looked up at him as it started up, and he nodded slightly, then went back to reading. After Kiriya opened up the charts he'd set up to track progress on Salty's reconstruction and filled in a few notes, he sat back to look at Graphite.

"You know, I still don't believe you about the whole... "Joke Hiiro" thing."

Graphite looked up irritably, "Really? You're still thinking about that?"

"Well yeah,” Kiriya shifted forward to rest his chin on his hands, "When something bothers me, I keep thinking about it and start investigating. And this? Seems so unbelievable it's been bothering me a _lot._ So, I wanna see what else I can get out of you before I start asking Hiiro about it and try my best not to rat you out to him," he grinned then leaned back to continue his notes.

Graphite made a frustrated growl, "Wow, why am I not surprised you turned on me this quick?"

"It's a sign we're growing closer," Kiriya winked, "I betray all my friends at some point."

Before Graphite could retort, the door slid open and in walked Hiiro, carrying a small white box. He paused, taking stock of the room's occupants before greeting them each with a nod, "Kujo, Graphite."

"Hey, Hiiro." Kiriya waved and gave Graphite a look, eyes glittering with intent.

Graphite just hissed at him and held the magazine up to completely block both of them from view. Kiriya snickered and shrugged in a "what can you do?" manner to Hiiro, then went back to typing. Hiiro's brow furrowed as he looked between them, trying to decipher what was wrong. He didn't seem to find anything because he shook his head and pulled out a rectangular cut of some fancy looking chocolate cake.

It went quiet between the three of them for a while. The atmosphere not exactly awkward, but definitely not comfortable either. Kiriya would pause often between typing and clicking around his notes, and those gaps got filled with the sounds of pages turning or Hiiro's knife tearing through the cream layers on his cake. As they settled into this new energy at the table, Graphite finally started to lower the magazine, eventually leaning forward and setting it on the table, propping up his head with his hand as he read. Hiiro seemed less tense, too. Relaxed enough to suddenly try to start small talk with Kiriya, which for Hiiro, was amazing progress.

"So Kujo, how is your progress on the vaccines going? I know you're involved in quite a few projects at the moment."

Kiriya blinked rapidly, taken a bit off guard but answered quickly. "Oh you know, it's going well. My team's got it on lock since they got the hang of it! They're all pretty sharp." Hiiro nodded and Kiriya turned the topic towards him, "How's teaching the interns going?"

Hiiro ducked his head, "It's... frustrating, admittedly. But I think I'm starting to understand it better. It's hard to not be impatient with them, sometimes. One of my students, Oikawa, she's having trouble understanding polycythemia and I'm not sure if it has to do with my explanations but continually misunderstands that the blood cells aren't malformed, and there's just an overabundance of them."

Graphite looked across the table, catching Kiriya's eye and tossing his head towards Hiiro slightly, eyebrows raising as if to say, "watch this."

"Well, you know what they say about blood work," he announced, and Hiiro's eyes snapped from Kiriya to him in astonishment, "Most of it's in vein, anyways."

"You, how did you?"

Graphite just smiled, then flipped to the next page in his magazine.

Hiiro turned back, looking lost, "Kujo, I thought you said Graphite didn't have any memories of Saki's anymore."

"Erm, it's more like, they're hazy in most places." Kiriya tried to look as confused as possible, "You mind filling me in on what just happened there, or?"

Hiiro stared at Graphite, brow furrowed for a while longer, but shook his head, "I'd rather not."

Kiriya caught Graphite's eyes as Hiiro turned his attention back to his cake, and Graphite gave him a little wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joke Hiiro is the result of him making puns in that one Ex-Aid special where he gets the baseball upgrade. Haven't seen it myself but my friends made a cute headcanon where he used to tell bad jokes before Zero Day happened and he got all stoic.


	13. Chapter 13

With nothing much to do around CR or Genm today, Kiriya decided it was high time for a nap. He and Nico had plans to renovate the Genm building and make basically hostels out of the old, lavish meeting rooms on every floor for employees that were in the crunch. Seriously, who the fuck needed that many meeting rooms, anyways? Might as well put them to actual use when they could just pull chairs up in a circle and talk to everyone about their progress and ideas. Nico and Tsukuru seemed to agree that was a better way to cover notes with the employees, at least.

But, until all that was done, there was always old faithful, the CR couch. Just as he was pulling his jacket over himself and curling into the cushions, the door to the break room opened and in walked Emu, looking dead on his feet. Kiriya immediately blinked awake, it felt like it'd been years since he last saw him. Emu seemed to be thinking the same thing because he perked up when he noticed Kiriya, immediately making his way over. Kiriya sat up to make room for Emu and he gratefully flopped onto the cushion next to him.

"Been a while, Ace."

Emu smiled, "Yeah, it really has, hasn't it, Kiriya?"

"Yeah, how you been?"

Emu grinned tiredly, "Good, how abou—"

"C'mon, Ace, don't gimme that. How have you really been?"

Emu sagged tiredly, posture slumping over. "I'm tired, I guess. I don't know. I've just been like, trying to keep going. If I stop to think, eventually I'll get caught in a loop of analyzing what I've done, trying to figure out where I went wrong. I could've saved so many more people if I'd just done this or that."

Kiriya threw his arm over him, casual, patting his shoulder comfortingly, "I think I get it."

"How do you deal with it?"

Kiriya chuckled self deprecatingly. "To be honest? I'm not coping as well as I think I am."

Emu looked at him with a sad smile, but nodded and shifted closer to Kiriya's hold.

"At least we all have each other to hopefully stop us from spiraling too far."

Kiriya threw his head back and laughed, "Yeah, that's true. One day we'll all be fighting each other again but it's gonna be over how we're not taking care of ourselves."

Emu let out a soft chuckle, "Yeah, I can see that. If there's anything we all won't stop doing it's the infighting thing."

"Competition's a big gamer thing, right? And that's kinda what brought us all together, so it makes sense."

"Next to Hiiro, you're the furthest thing from a gamer" Emu shoved at him playfully, not even using enough strength to jostle the arm around his shoulders.

"I'm hurt, Ace." Kiriya gave Emu an exaggerated pout, "I've been playing a lot of Drago Knight Hunter Z lately."

Emu blinked, and shrugged Kiriya off to face him, "Oh yeah. How's working with Graphite going? He's not being a dick to you, right?"

Kiriya shook his head slightly, "That's weird, Parad's been asking Graphite that about me every time he sees us."

Emu grinned a little at Kiriya's surprise but shrugged. "I mean, beyond a few experiences during Chronicle, the most significant thing he's done to me was infecting Dr. Kyoutarou."

"Ah, yeah, I can imagine how that would leave an impact. And the only interactions Parad's had with me and Graphite was kicking his ass twice, and whatever else we've done during Chronicle." Kiriya smiled, "Checks out, now."

"We're just worried," Emu nodded, "But you didn't answer me, he's been alright, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course." Emu seemed suspicious of that answer, so Kiriya sighed softly and continued. "I may or may not have gotten him to hang out with me in the first place by promising him he could punch me in the face as hard as he could." Emu's expression shifted, silently demanding more information, "And he promised to snap me in half whenever he decided it was time to take that punch."

Emu's face grew horrified. "Why would you do that?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"And now?"

"I mean, we're doing pretty good. He's still cooperating with me and we've got a couple inside joke things going already."

Emu pouted, "Okay, but you better let me know if he tries anything. I don't think he would, but also, Drago Knight's rules of "fair" and "honor" are kinda more in line with Bakusou Bike's."

"Yeah the, "anything it takes to win" motto, right? Maybe it's why we get along."

Emu gave him a skeptical look and a soft hum. “Okay... but if he tries anything, let me know, so I can kick his ass.”

”Heh, will do, Ace.”

”I got your back.” Emu shot him one of those sunshine smiles and Kiriya felt reassured for the first time in a long while.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graphite and Kiriya talk about bodies while Kiriya works on Salty's. They talk about Graphite's to be specific.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ever just forget a somewhat vital chapter when you're transferring your fic from your writing pad to Ao3?

"You know, I feel like we've gotten a lot closer over the months and you still look so angry around me. I don't wanna be rude, but is that really your resting face or did I do something to piss you off?" Kiriya looked over his shoulder to Graphite for his response.

Graphite gave him a sarcastic smile that was more of a snarl in the way it didn't reach his eyes and the corners of his mouth didn't completely go up, "This better?" and oh, now he was just full-on sneering at Kiriya.

But Kiriya just laughed and turned back to where he was working on Salty, "Such a charming grin, you must win over all the kids in the club with that look."

"Maybe I would. Who knows, the Ministry of Health might just be afraid to let me out because I'd be seducing people left and right," Kiriya grinned at the eye roll in Graphite's tone.

He laughed, "Y'know, I wouldn't blame them if that was the reason. You are a catch, I gotta say." Graphite huffed again, but it wasn't as amused as he was hoping for, "What's up, big guy? Don't like the idea of a bunch of people chasing after you?"

The conversation went dead for a while and Kiriya took the time to focus entirely on Salty. The whole process was pretty much like welding, if videos he's seen online were accurate. He and Asuna got so good at it where they could do it on their own now, and switched off reassembling Salty every week. When they first used the defibrillator to do the charge half of the process it made Kiriya feel a bit like a mad scientist, like he found a way to resurrect Bugsters though nuclear fusion. Now they just got him a car battery and alligator clamps to stick to each body part while he sprayed the area with Gamedeus cells from Masamune's old bugvisor. So still very mad scientist-like, since they were still waiting on the generator, and if Kiriya were honest, he didn't think they'd ever get the generator Asuna was promised.

"If there were people chasing me down, it wouldn't be for who I really am,"

'Oh, buddy, you'd have another thing coming if that's what you really think,' Kiriya thought, humming in acknowledgment to keep his mouth occupied instead of saying anything embarrassing.

Graphite stayed silent, but something about the air felt like he was anticipating an answer, so Kiriya tried to oblige, quickly thinking up something to continue with.

"You can't know that for sure," Kiriya decided on.

"I'm sure."

Kiriya smiled ruefully, since Graphite couldn't possibly see it from where he was, "Oh c'mon, you've got lots of qualities, you're assertive. Some people really like that in a partner. But underneath you've got a really charming side, not to mention a great face—"

"And that's just it," Graphite cut him off, "This face, this human body. It's not me. Like sure, I guess it's good to blend in with the rest of you, but it's not me. It's just Saki mixed with my own code."

Kiriya tilted his head curiously, "Did Momose feel uncomfortable being 'Saki,' if you catch my drift?"

There was a moment of silence, and a rushed, "Yeah" from behind him. Kiriya grinned, imagining Graphite nodding before realizing Kiriya couldn't see it.

"I don't think Saki ever had this look in mind specifically, but it's nothing I thought up or wished I looked like, for sure."

Kiriya rolled his shoulders, he'd gotten Salty's arm reconstructed so he deserved a break. He put the bugvisor on the tool tray, switched the car battery off, and turned to Graphite, "How do _you_ wanna look?" He asked, "Being under hospital arrest sucks and everything, but an upside to it is you don't have to worry about how anyone sees you except for patients if you wanna follow Poppy around."

"You wouldn't want to spend time with me like that."

Kiriya moved to be face to face with Graphite, looking him dead in the eye, "Try me."

Graphite looked up at him with a harsh, distrusting expression, but let the virus propagate over him, cocooning him, then receding to reveal his monster form again.

Kiriya kept steady, honestly enjoying the view because Graphite's monster form was ripped and just, so many attractive places to look at. He grinned and shrugged slightly, "I know it's nothing new to me, but I think you're just as hot like this." And _woah_ that was a little more honest than he was hoping for. At least he was able to bite down on the 'if not more' just in time. Graphite seemed startled too, so much that he reverted to his human form, wide-eyed and looking at Kiriya like he'd just slapped him.

Graphite swallowed hard, eyes darting over Kiriya's face, trying to find something. Whatever it was he was looking for, he didn't seem to find it, and he just stared for a moment longer, confused, mouth parted around a sound that just wasn't finding it's way from his throat. He looked away, letting out a little huff that could be a chuckle and said, "Thanks. I'll... Keep that in mind."

"Yeah, of course, man."


	15. Chapter 15

Graphite wanted to come to the roof for today's interview session and Kiriya wasn't sure why. Well, he had an inkling. The roof was Graphite's safe haven, and after doing some research into Drago Knight lore, it made sense. The species of dragon Graphite was based off had some fancy "Royalty of the Skies" title in game. So it made sense that the place with the easiest access to the sky, made him the most comfortable.

All of this amounted to a basic premise: Graphite had something serious to tell him.

"So, I have some basic questions, but if you have anything you wanna start off with I'm open to it." Kiriya started off normally, trying to keep it as casual and comfortable as possible.

Graphite didn't seem to notice or appreciate it at all. Instead, he looked away, eyes harsh. Kiriya fought the urge to comfort him in any way, sitting patiently and waiting for him to continue.

"You asked me about Saki's memories once."

Kiriya nodded, keeping quiet, but Graphite didn't look up or wait for verbal confirmation.

"Sometimes... I feel how she did more strongly than I remember anything. Before Chronicle, her memories were invasive. I'd see them as clearly as my own, like they were a folder of files I could access whenever, and they'd open themselves up when I saw something she had strong connections to. But after you and Poppy brought me back it was dimmer. Like her memories would still open up but I didn't have to experience them, I could look away more easily."

He paused for a long while, trying to find the words, but also seeming unsure if he should continue. Kiriya tried to stay neutral, not wanting to stop or encourage him, since Graphite deciding to tell him on his own was the most important thing here. And finally, he continued. 

"Honestly it was freeing at first. It felt like I could start over and just be me. I wouldn't have this loneliness because I know all these people from school or online, but they don't know me and it's not like I could reach out to any of them. Her memories weren't so pervasive that they'd affect my own if I saw something that reminded me of something she'd done. And it was great at first, but slowly, Momose worked her way back into my head. And now I see Snipe or Brave, and they wouldn't just be people from her past that were nuisances to me. Now, they're just, Taiga and Hiiro, and—" His breath caught in his throat and he shuddered.

"And I still feel what she felt for them sometimes. It comes and goes in waves."

A heavy silence fell between them and Kiriya struggled to break through it. Every time he opened his mouth, any words immediately left his mind until it was going on its own, defaulting back to interview mode. Or even worse, voicing his own curiosity to sate it.

"What kind of feelings?"

Graphite breathed deep, it sounded labored, like he was struggling with this whole thing as much as Kiriya was. Of course, he was struggling, he was probably struggling more. This was a lot to unpack and here Kiriya was worrying about his own chances for something with Graphite now that Nico pointed out what his feelings were in crisp, clear HD detail.

"Usually it's anger. Something like "why didn't you care for me more" towards Hiiro. Disappointment, I guess. But with Taiga... it's more complicated."

Kiriya found himself holding his breath as Graphite considered his next words.

"It's sadness. Mostly. Like, trying really hard not to be pity because he wouldn't appreciate that. But there's just a part that feels sorry for him because he's having such a hard time letting go."

Kiriya exhaled slowly. He didn't want to say it was in relief, but he knew it was and he hated it. He hated that he still wanted a chance to—

Graphite swallowed hard and spoke again. "There's also— I feel so stupid saying this, but there's something else, too."

Kiriya felt his throat constrict once more, but he gestured for Graphite to continue anyways.

Something flashed in Graphite's face then and Kiriya wasn't sure what to make of it. Almost like betrayal? Did he want to stop?

Kiriya was about to backtrack but, too late, he was already speaking again.

"It's like... longing. Fuck! I hate saying this, but she had feelings for both of them! Sometimes it bleeds into my own emotions and I don't know what they are anymore, but I want to— It's... fucking, this was a mistake. Can we drop this?"

Kiriya felt a telltale constricting in his throat and a trembling in his chest that usually meant he was about to cry. Part of him was in relief so he could finally drop this stupid crush now that Graphite was obviously struggling with love that wasn’t for him. But the other part knew he was already in that infatuated stage and was breaking all over again.

"You..." Kiriya felt his words tremble in his throat. Frick, what could he say? "You've held onto that for a while, huh? It must've been rough."

Graphite blinked away the beginnings of tears and gritted his teeth, staring at Kiriya now, waiting for him to say anything else.

"We don't have to talk about it anymore, but, thank you for trusting me," Kiriya struggled to put up his facades again, but they were practiced motions, and his mask smiles went on easily once he got the momentum going, "I'm kinda honored since that’s a pretty big weight to hold onto."

Graphite bit his lip, seeming not totally satisfied with that answer, but it was going to have to do.


	16. Chapter 16

  
Everyone in CR seemed more tense now that Graphite was walking around in his monster form more often than not. But he seemed happy, and that's what mattered to Kiriya most, because a happy Graphite would be much easier for the others to bond with than an angry one. And it seemed like he was finally coping better now he was in a body he enjoyed most of the time. He still changed back to his humanoid form when he felt everyone was getting fed up with his monster form, and slowly he reserved it for most times he was just with Kiriya or Poppy. Or if he needed something to feel comfortable in after anything especially stressful.

Speaking of her, whenever he was with Poppy, there would be some times where they were deep in conversation with hushed tones. During these, Graphite was seemingly distressed from what Kiriya could tell of his body language and face if he happened to be in his human form at the time, and Poppy would be doing her best to be comforting, with a hint of empathetic distress to her face and movements. They always got quiet or moved somewhere else when others would try to figure out what the conversation was about. But Nico said she was taking a nap covered in the plushies in Poppy's corner one day and happened to catch the tail end of one of these conversations being about a certain "him" Graphite was having troubles sorting out his feelings for.

"It's about you, he's in love!" She cackled loudly and Kiriya just lightly shoved her aside, he was so down about the last talk he had with Graphite he couldn't think of a good response. In turn, she spun around and shoved him so hard he toppled over onto the table.

When he asked her what she was doing sleeping like that anyway, her only response was to shrug with her hands in her pockets, "Kuroto was out in the bugvisor with Taiga and Parad, so it was a safe place to nap."

While he understood the sentiment, Kiriya made a note to get cracking on arrangements for the in-house Genm nap rooms for people working overtime or just wanting to sleep on their breaks. And that's what lead him here, sitting at the CR breakroom table, writing up some budget allocation proposals and very rough floor plans to make some quick renovations to unused meeting rooms on every floor of the Genm building and get their workers, Nico's words, also his, 'some fucking beds, they deserve that at least.' This technically wasn't his job but someone needed to do it and get it to the people who could make it happen, and Nico was juggling Taiga's clinic, the company with Tsukuru, and it's not like Kiriya had much besides the Salty Restoration Project, which was finally wrapping up with the bugster walking around mostly intact, just missing a hand. And of course, Kiriya also had Graphite to deal with. But that wasn't any excuse to slack on work since it was just a "Kiriya being stupid for getting in over his head" problem at this point, as he liked to call it.

Hiiro sat at a diagonal from Kiriya, working on a slice of cake, the rest of it sitting in a cute, pink and cream striped box with dark chocolate brown accents, taking the form of borders on the box and fancy plaque on the cover for the name of the bakery to be displayed in cream-colored font.

Kiriya couldn't tell what kind of cake it was, but it looked like it had some kind of fruit theme going on. As Kiriya was taking a little break to stretch his shoulders out and Hiiro was going for another slice, Graphite walked into the room, full monster form. Not a good sign, something must've happened.

His eyes roamed CR for a moment, landing on Kiriya and Hiiro at the table, and he sat down heavily next to Kiriya. He stared at the cake in the center of the table for a few moments, before reaching a taloned hand into the box, Hiiro protesting, but it was too late, Graphite had already gently wedged his hand under a slice and was carefully lifting it out of the box.

"What are you even going to do with that, Bugster?" Hiiro pouted, "You don't even have a mouth in this form."

Graphite looked at Hiiro seriously for a few minutes and a heavy, awkward silence fell over the table. Kiriya leaned back in his seat to get a better view of both of them at the same time when he heard a muffled crunch, then a pop, like teeth grinding and bones cracking. Graphite's head tilted back, his neck extending a bit and the upper part of his face lifted off, right where the bright red parts of his face met the dark areas lined with gold and silver accents. Along those lines, Graphite's face split open into two mouths, lined with rows and rows of razor teeth. Dark, purplish-black tongues lashed around for good measure, and Graphite's lower maw opened wide to shove the slice of cake in whole, jaws snapping shut around it.

Hiiro scooted backwards in his chair, completely done with Graphite for the day if his face was any indication. He pulled his coat on and briskly made his way to the door. Kiriya on the other hand, was completely transfixed, watching Graphite in fascination and a mild sense of horror as he swallowed and licked the frosting from his fingers with his upper mouth. 

All he could think of in that moment was, 'Oh no, he's hot.' And that was his last coherent thought before he was leaning forward to watch Graphite more intently, noticing a glob of cream that had escaped his lower jaws. He'd nearly slipped from his chair at this point, reaching out instinctively to cup Graphite's new, more reptilian jawline in his hands, absentmindedly brushing the cake remains from his mouth with his thumb.

Graphite's face shook minutely in his hands, like he was trying to throw Kiriya off, and he briefly panicked, mind rushing to a crocodile's death roll when it had its prey in its grasp, and wondered if Graphite had those instincts, too. But then he held perfectly still, eyes wide, watching Kiriya carefully. The motion and fear of a potential death roll were enough to pull Kiriya from whatever daze he'd been in, and he retracted his hands quickly, belatedly realizing his fingers had been scritching under Graphite's jaw like he was a dog or, more accurately, a very oversized iguana.

"Sorry," he managed to stutter out, "I just didn't know you could do that.

Graphite looked at a loss for words, his chest rising and falling rapidly like he was short of breath. He shrugged the silence off, grimacing with those menacing teeth, "I don't do it much... I know it freaks people out."

"Uh-huh..." Kiriya said, in a whole new kind of state of shock because two different voices came out from both mouths, one was the Graphite he knew, but the other was a bit higher in pitch, one he took longer to recognize but remembered it from a dark basement in Genm almost two years ago, haunting Hiiro's every step during Chronicle, "Could you do that before Zero Day, like in game?"

Graphite shrugged, "Momose's voice is new."

"Cool," Kiriya nodded, not sure what else to say.

They turned back to face the table, Kiriya sliding back into his seat and promptly crossing his legs to hide the way his interest seemed intent on poking out as Graphite started tearing into the cake in front of him with wild abandon. Flashes of Kiriya's terrible, vaguely erotic dreams came back and he forced himself to look only at the floor plans for the Genm renovations, even if he couldn't bring himself to direct his thoughts anywhere else besides being bitten into like the cake that was being decimated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual reference to help with two mouths Graphite: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OrangeCylon64/status/1213241752556933120?s=20) [Tumblr](https://orange-plague-cylon.tumblr.com/post/190046078101/i-know-these-arent-11-the-canon-design-but-i-was#notes)


	17. Chapter 17

They're back on the roof for today. No particular reason, but Kiriya finished running tests on Salty under Graphite's critical eye hours ago, and neither of them seemed eager to leave each other yet after they left Salty in the breakroom. It felt nice and easy and yet, Kiriya still felt like something was off with their relationship. Something beyond the life-ending punch Graphite promised to give him one day.

"... We should do this more often." Graphite said softly.

"We already hang out a lot, though?" Kiriya tilted his head.

Graphite clammed up for a moment, both mouths working as if they were trying to find words, "Are we hanging out too much?"

Mentally slapping himself, Kiriya tried backpedaling, "No I meant like, I was more wondering what you meant because we already spend a lot of time? Did you wanna do something else when we usually see each other?"

Graphite shrugged, "I guess. It's more like, we run around for work and testing and the whole, getting Salty back together thing a lot, but we never just... Sit down like this all that often. It's nice... The quiet's nice."

Kiriya laughed, "Yeah, don't get that much around "God," huh?"

"Around CR. You're all so noisy." Graphite snarled, but his mouths were grinning.

"Admit it, you love that about us, though."

"I won't admit anything." Graphite turned his snout up, pouting.

Kiriya grinned and turned back to the view of the city. Now he knew what was off. He let the silence comfortably wrap around them as he figured out how to pose the thought.

"Well, you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can always find me and we can come up here. Maybe I can sneak you out every once in awhile if you're really feeling cooped up." He winked.

Graphite tilted his head and fuck that was cute, "What do you mean?"

Kiriya shrugged a shoulder, "You never come to me. It's always me coming to find you."

Graphite's jaws clenched a little, his posture retracting to make his face more humanoid. He looked away and got up, taking a few steps away from the edge, back to Kiriya.

Kiriya twisted around in his spot, turning to call after him, "Did I say something wrong?" Graphite stayed silent, and Kiriya got to his feet, deciding to test his luck, "Look, if you don't wanna hang out with Kuroto and Parad you can just choose not to, y'know?" Kiriya's eyes flicked down to see Graphite's claw twitch, but pressed on, "It must be hard after having a friend-hate relationship after six years but—

"They're all I know, okay?" Graphite snapped, whirling back around to face him. "And as nice as you and Poppy have been to me, all your other friends don't seem to be as excited to have me around. Not that I blame them, since I tried murdering people close to them... On top of all the other murder during Chronicle." He grimaced.

"Hey, you wanna jump off the roof with me?" Kiriya said suddenly.

Graphite blinked rapidly.

Caught him off guard again, Kiriya noted.

Kiriya thought back to all the other times they ended up here. He didn't like to think about fate, or his life being controlled by something bigger than him. But with how many times their relationship changed when they were up here. there had to be something to it. His thought of being the Lucifer to Graphite's Jesus was about to become literal as he reached a hand out.

"C'mon. I do this with Poppy all the time, it'll be fun. I promise."

"Poppy doesn't seem like the type to be having problems with something as simple as making friends."

Kiriya tried to smile as encouragingly as possible.

"Yeah, well, most people around here don't obsess over blaming Poppy for a murder she didn't intentionally commit. And when we fall off huge buildings or whatever it's usually life or death, so like, not as fun as I'm making it out to be, but I do this on my own when I need to just let go."

Graphite's eyes softened. "Why resort to something so extreme?"

Kiriya shrugged, half smiling. "It's not like it'll kill me, just gotta teleport whenever I want. Plus, skydiving's expensive."

Graphite tentatively took a step towards him. Kiriya kept his hand extended, and Graphite slowly made his way forward, gaining confidence with every step until they were almost nose to nose, Kiriya's extended arm framing Graphite's body in a way where it would be so easy to just wrap around him and— Nope. No. Not going there, he openly admitted he pines after Hiiro and Taiga sometimes, it wouldn't work out.

Instead, he gave Graphite a devilish grin and held his arms out, stepping back, feeling his heels dip off the edge of the roof a bit. With a wink, he let himself free fall. As he tipped backward, he heard Graphite give sharp, involuntary gasp, fingers brushed his and suddenly he hurtled headfirst towards the pavement below. Usually, he'd just let himself fall however gravity decided to pull him, but this time he wiggled in the air, trying to get himself into a position where he could watch for Graphite, finding a somewhat comfortable position on his back, letting his arms and legs get carried up by inertia. Fortunately, Graphite wasn't far behind and was already falling off the roof after him.

The few seconds in between their jumps was enough time to build up quite a distance between them, but Graphite streamlined his body to speed up his fall like a pro. Kiriya distantly realized, of course, he'd be good at this, flying was probably a huge part of his life before whatever it was now. Kiriya wondered if he missed it, and figured this was probably the closest he could get to flying unless he reverted to his Phase 1 form. Maybe this would be a way to get around the hassle of turning into a big fuck off dragon every time he missed the feeling.

Graphite managed to catch up to him and Kiriya blinked up confusedly at his face. If Kiriya didn't have to be real with himself, he would say that Graphite looked concerned for him. Kiriya subconsciously reached out a hand to comfort him and he felt his breath catch in his throat as Graphite's fingers intertwined with his. Kiriya could hardly believe it, but then Graphite took his other hand and he felt like his breathing stopped right then and there. Kiriya's fight or flight instincts immediately kicked in and he gripped Graphite's hands tight as he started teleporting.

He ended up pulling Graphite with him and they landed gently on the top of one of the arches of Rainbow Bridge, hands still tightly grasped. Graphite scanned the area, immediately on guard for threats. Kiriya shook their joined hands and Graphite's attention snapped back to him.

With a little grin, Kiriya brought their conjoined hands up, "Mind letting me go? We can go to the edge and watch the sunset. I think we'll be out of view of cars there."

Graphite slowly let go and followed Kiriya to the edge of the arch where he was pointing down into the water where the pillars of the arch disappeared into the water. "There's a ledge down there that should be big enough to chill on."

He teleported down to it, not giving Graphite enough time to ask questions. If people spotted them, they'd be in trouble with the Ministry of Health, doubly so because he took Graphite off the hospital grounds in his monster form of all things. He landed on the ledge, taking a moment to stretch and sat down on it. Graphite landed next to him a moment later.

"You come here often, then?"

Kiriya opted to watch the sunset instead of meeting Graphite's eyes staring at him hard, like he was a puzzle to be figured out.

"Not really, just looked at a lot of images online. I have been here once though. The second week after I became a bugster, Masamune didn't keep too close of an eye on me, said I should 'figure out my capabilities' or whatever, since I guess he was so sure I wouldn't betray him or anything because of the chat I had with him in prison. So I came out here to practice teleporting and stuff," He laughed, "Kinda caused a scare because someone was driving across late at night and saw me jump off the arch before I teleported out to the Genm roof. Any attention on it died down pretty quick since I was too far for the driver to be able to describe me beyond "black clothes and floral print" and they never found a body, so..." He shrugged.

Graphite's piercing gaze weighed down on him, so Kiriya finally looked away from the water to meet his eyes. He was still attempting to take Kiriya apart with just his eyes, making him feel wildly uncomfortable.

"Anyways! I saw this on my way down and it looked like a nice place to chill!" He announced, trying to disperse some of the tension.

Another heavy silence fell over them as Graphite continued to stare, looking perplexed and a little concerned.

"I think you need better hobbies," He said, finally.

Kiriya burst out laughing, "Yeah probably!"

Graphite's jaw cracked as he leaned forward again, mouths opening wide before they shut and his teeth were bared at Kiriya in a macabre grin, "Thanks for showing it to me, though. Maybe one day I'll take you flying in return."

"We'd be violating so many rules but you know what? I think it'd be worth it." Kiriya swung his legs excitedly over the ledge.

Graphite turned to watch the sunset, "Who said we'd be doing it out here?"

Kiriya bumped him with his shoulder, "Where would we go then?"

Turning further away, Graphite snorted derisively, shaking his head a bit, "You know."

Yes, Kiriya definitely had an idea of what Graphite was implying, but he wanted to have some fun, "No, I don't think I do. Please, enlighten me, 'Phite," He leaned into the dragon's space with a smug expression.

Graphite shoved him away with his shoulder, "You know, okay?" But Kiriya didn't lean up, remaining silent and grinning as he watched Graphite squirm a little more.

"Fine... I wanna take you home. Guide you around so you're not running around the forest like a headless chicken."

Warmth filled Kiriya's chest at the words 'take you home,' and he suddenly felt lightheaded, "Well, I mean... I've run around with a chicken head before, so that sounds like a nice change of pace."

Graphite turned to him suddenly, taken aback, and Kiriya quickly explained, "When I was infected with Gamedeus, I got turned into a mook bugster—“

Graphite scoffed, shaking his head, "You're a mess."

"I know," Kiriya quirked an eyebrow, "But you put up with me anyway."

Graphite looked down his beak at him, trying to seem dismissive, but there was still an amused grin pulling at his lower mouth, "I do, and I have no idea why."

'Because you love me,' was on the tip of Kiriya's tongue, but he stared at Graphite for a while, and it slowly died, seeming like more and more of a bad idea to say. Especially when it wasn't true. He shrugged and turned back to the water, swinging his feet gently as they watched the sunset together. If Graphite didn't want to hang out after this, he tried. This was nice. And it would have to be enough.


	18. Chapter 18

After the roof jumping incident, it felt like something had shifted between the two of them. Kiriya couldn't exactly place what it was, but Graphite seemed more open with him in a sense. Quicker to smile or laugh, show him emotions beyond exasperation, anger or sass. Kiriya wasn't exactly sure what caused it, but hopefully, it was a culmination of all the hanging out they'd done over the year. It felt like he'd been handed something, and Kiriya was a little afraid to look at what it was, because it felt scarily like trust, and the last few times someone had trusted him...

He'd rather not think about it right now.

"Kiriya, you wanna spar with me?"

Kiriya nearly snapped his neck to find the source of Graphite's voice and make sure he was hearing right.

"Seriously?" Kiriya gestured to himself.

Graphite rolled his eyes. "Are there any other Kiriyas I don't know about? Did you get replaced?"

Kiriya waved his hand, "No, no, I'm just... surprised? Usually, you don't come looking for me."

Graphite looked taken aback for a moment before schooling his face into his usual scowl. "Don't think too much about it."

Kiriya grinned, getting up into Graphite's space, "Oh really now? I think I'm gonna keep doing just that." Graphite elbowed him away but Kiriya stepped aside and threw an arm over his shoulders, pulling him in closer. "So, you wanna spar with me? What brought this on?"

Graphite turned away, but Kiriya swore he saw a light flush at the tips of his ears and smirked.

"I was thinking about how I wanted to fight you before the second Game Disease outbreak and I wanna try it out. One on one with you. Make up for lost time in a sense, since we're spending so much together now."

There was something unsaid here, and Kiriya was usually good at deducing that kind of stuff. But for some reason, this time, he couldn't exactly grasp what it was. He smiled instead and squeezed Graphite's shoulder. Well, he'd figure it out eventually, that was for sure.

"Sounds fun, where you wanna do this?"

Of all places Graphite would've taken him, Kiriya should've expected the roof. Kiriya knew this place was pretty prolific in everyone's lives. Almost all of them had some kind of significant confrontation or conversation up here, but he's starting to find the frequency he and Graphite come here is a little alarming. He wondered what it meant for their relationship, but he figured he didn't need to worry about it too much. Things were going well, so obviously if things were changing, they must've been going for the better. Kiriya knew this was a dangerous line of logic to be following, but this was Graphite they were talking about. Straightforward, no-nonsense Graphite. There was no way he'd be up to something.

Graphite transformed first, the virus slowly bubbling over his form, shifting and melding and moving across his body until he's in his monster form. He rolled his neck, then looked at Kiriya expectantly. Kiriya nodded and clipped his Driver on, going through the motions until he's standing there in his Gear Zero form.

They stared each other down, Graphite measuring him up for sure, while Kiriya just watched carefully, staying on his toes to be ready to react before Graphite finally made a move, Kiriya artfully falling to the ground to dodge and kicking his leg out to try and sweep Graphite's legs out from under him.

* * *

Sparring became a part of the routine, too. Kiriya looking worn out? Fighting oughta make him feel more awake. Graphite pissed off at something? He'd be hauling Kiriya away the second he saw him. Both of them just bored, sitting around with nothing to do after a testing session? PVP enabled on the roof again. Kiriya felt endeared and exhausted at being in such high demand. On one hand, Graphite was making an effort after Kiriya voiced his concerns that one time, but on the other, Graphite was a lot to deal with in combat.

He knew that it took all four of them to take him out before, and Graphite had fought Hiiro and Taiga in their strongest forms for 12 whole hours before he went down. And while he didn't expect sparring with Graphite to be easy, he didn't expect to legitimately be worried about his life every time they fought. That first match his health bar was down to one hit point in minutes, and he would've been dead if it weren't for Graphite halting the match, disappointedly putting his glaive away and reverting to his human form the second he noticed.

Kiriya thought that would've been it. He obviously wasn't interesting enough or a good challenge, but Graphite kept coming back for him again and again, asking for rematches until Kiriya got good enough to hold his ground.

He tried his best to ignore the weird, sparkly-eyed looks from Poppy, or the crude comments from Nico and Parad about dragon mating fights, and the questions of "what the fuck," much more eloquently worded from Emu, Haima and Hiiro, but verbatim from Taiga. If Kiriya were honest, and he really was trying to be, he didn't know "what the fuck" he was doing either. He just knew that Graphite was finally socializing more. Like genuinely trying to sit down and have conversations with Nico and Emu, and placing a plate full of cake in front of Hiiro with a rough clatter, sitting down and watching him reluctantly eat it before he started digging in too, using his fingers to steal bites, or taking Taiga aside for a conversation no one knew the exact contents of, but was a long time coming and much needed based on the way Taiga seemed like a weight lifted from him afterward. And if it took him getting his ass handed to him on an almost daily basis, he'd take the hit for the team. It meant his plan was finally working, at least, and now it was up to the rest of CR to do what they would with Graphite. And by that he meant they'd better treat him fucking nicely because he worked hard to break through Graphite's walls to get here.

* * *

Kiriya had lost track of how many sparring matches they'd had to get to this point, but Kiriya had finally found his rhythm with Graphite. Getting comfortable with him like this was his first mistake, but also his goal this entire time. He just never envisioned it like this.

They were both getting worn out, and Kiriya felt a little pride well up in him to be able to wear Graphite out himself. Granted, he was no Hiiro and Taiga with their fancy final forms with tricks and gimmicks and healing, fucking Hiiro what the fuck why did he never use that ever? But Gear Zero had one trick, and it was all he needed: nullifying the virus. At first, he thought Graphite would be happy that he wasn't using it, being all proud, honorable fight warrior. But he totally forgot about that conversation he had with Emu months ago about Drago Knight’s particular brand of honor.

Graphite got _angry_ at him for never using Gear Zero to the most of its abilities and the null effect was the whole reason he wanted to fight him in the first place, but he looked away slightly when he said that, making Kiriya feel like Graphite wasn't telling him everything about his reasons to fight, but he steamrolled on with his explanation before Kiriya could ask. Graphite said Gear Zero is what put them on an even playing field, made the fight a challenge, exciting. That a hunter should always use every tool at their disposal. Every strategy was valid, and honor came from the struggle to fight, survive at any cost, living to see another day to continue fighting for each and every moment like it would be his last.

And surviving was pretty much all they were doing now. Kiriya more than Graphite, of course. He didn't know bugsters could feel exhausted like this, but this felt like the deep-set ache after intense workouts in his college karate club he'd be feeling for days later. He was doing all he could to dodge, and move to try and wear Graphite out, to leave an opening for a decisive blow.

Unfortunately, in his exhaustion, Kiriya's footwork got sloppy and he stumbled back to dodge one of Graphite's jabs with his glaive, dropping his arms and opening his guard for Graphite to rush in and rear back for a swing. But the final glaive strike never came.

In an instant, Graphite threw his weapon away, getting even closer into Kiriya's space and slamming his left fist into his mask with all his strength. It made a terrible crunching sound and Kiriya's brain felt rattled around enough that he was probably concussed if that was even possible for a bugster. Suddenly, his face got hit with icy winter air and he gasped. Kiriya stumbled back, trying to keep his footing, but he ended up falling on his ass, collapsing to the ground with a grunt.

Kiriya stared up at the sky in a daze, distantly watching the clouds roll by overhead. His ears were ringing and his vision fuzzed and went dark at the edges for a moment, making him close them against the whiplash of sensations his body was going through. It could've been months, years for all he cared before he opened his eyes again. But when he did open them, it was to a clawed hand gently slapping his cheek, shaking his head and immediately sending shooting pain through it again. He groaned as he tried to focus and saw Graphite, crouching over him.

"C'mon, get up." Graphite took a step back, hand still extended for Kiriya to take.

He struggled with getting his arm to move for a few seconds, genuinely scaring him that he might've had some kind of permanent damage to his brain. After another moment of pure fear for his motor skills, his arm finally swung around, hand finding Graphite's with a satisfying clap. Graphite's talons tightened around his hand, muscles in his arms flexing as he started pulling Kiriya up. Kiriya tried to help him along, but his coordination was still so scrambled that Graphite ended up doing most of the work. He swung Kiriya up with enough momentum to make him feel nauseous, and Graphite's other hand came out to grab at his shoulder to help steady him.

The hand grasping his let go and cradled his chin, tilting it up so he was hazily staring into Graphite's dark, dark eyes. Graphite twisted his face this way and that, gently, to not jostle him anymore, and he gave an approving hum.

"Well, you're gonna get what you wished for."

Kiriya's brow furrowed confusedly, making his head throb, and he winced, "What?" He said slowly.

Graphite's thumb gently swiped along Kiriya's jaw. "It's gonna bruise real nice. Or real bad, depending on how you wanna look at it."

Through the haze of pain and dizziness his mind was in, Kiriya struggled to remember what he'd ever say to make Graphite think he wanted his face to bruise— Oh... Holy shit. This was it... This was the retaliation hit he'd been waiting for this whole time. Fuck, it hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before, Graphite must've put all his strength behind that punch—

Before he could think of anything to say, Graphite was hoisting him up and throwing him over his shoulder, sending a whole new wave of pain and nausea through him. He couldn't hold back his pained groan, but Graphite didn't pay him any mind, teleporting who knew where. When Kiriya's head finally stopped spinning, he opened his eyes to stare up at the high ceiling of the CR patient room. He noticed the foreign feeling of something scratchy around his neck and he sloppily raised his hand to brush it away, only to find it was attached to him.

Kiriya blearily opened his eyes to find he was in a patient robe. From some corner of the room, there was a sudden clamor and Kiriya grimaced at how it stabbed at his brain. He let his hand fall back to the bed with a defeated _whump_ and opened his eyes again. His vision was suddenly filled with a circle of concerned faces staring down at him.

"Um, what happened?" He blinked confusedly at his voice. It was raspy like he hadn't drank water or used it the whole day.

"Graphite nearly killed you." Nico deadpanned.

"Nico!" Taiga scolded and she stuck her tongue at him.

"What? It's true!"

"Everyone, give him some space, please," Emu broke Nico and Taiga up as they started shoving, waving his hands around to get them all to take a step back.

Kiriya sank further into the bed, letting his eyes drift closed again. He barely interacted with any of them and he already felt exhausted.

"Oh wow, he looks like he's checking out again,"

"Everyone out, let's let him rest."

Kiriya felt someone's eyes still on him, but he was too tired to bother with checking who it was.

"Graphite?" Poppy's voice softly called out.

The eyes lingered on him a few moments longer, and he felt the slightest brush of a sharp nail against his jaw before footsteps briskly moved away from him.


	19. Chapter 19

"How's it feel to finally be in the world of the living again?"

Kiriya laughed and flopped down onto the couch next to Graphite, the bruise, still healing, faintly on his face, "As much as I thought I'd hate it, it's good to be back," He kicked his shoes off, ankle socks slipping down his heels and sliding to his arches, and span around on the cushion to lean his back against the armrest, "I'm sure you didn't miss me."

There's a slight movement as Graphite tilted his head away, leaning onto the arm propping him up on the other armrest. Kiriya leaned over to catch him hiding a smile.

"Don't get too cocky, Kiriya. I'm just happy you're back so Nico will stop bothering me about killing you."

Kiriya tensed, oh fuck, Nico, "Did she say anything weird about me while I was out?" He tried to keep the question as nonchalant as possible.

"She says a lot of weird things. I don't keep track of them all." Graphite shifted on the couch, bringing his legs up to mirror Kiriya's position. 

Kiriya nodded, "Nothing about me and you though, right?"

"Okay she said a lot about that. In what way do you mean 'about me and you?' Because she went on about how she was gonna kick my ass if she had to weld you back together like you did with Salty."

"Did she now? I'd pay to see that."

"Fuck you, Kiriya," Graphite bared his teeth, "So much for us being friends, I guess. A whole year together, and it's all a waste."

Kiriya readied himself to crush the hope growing in his chest at hearing those words, "Friends?"

"Yeah? I would've kicked you to the curb a long time ago if I didn't want to hang out. And you made that whole big deal of when I offered to spar with you about 'coming to you' or whatever," Graphite put his hands up and shrugged, "I guess if you don't think we're friends,"

"No!" Kiriya leaned forward, holding his hands up placatingly, "We are. At least, I wanna be. Just wasn't sure if you were on board with the idea."

Graphite watched him for a few moments, looking him up and down slowly. He seemed to like whatever he saw because a small smirk pulled at his lips before his body pixellated and bubbled, glowing amber and red as the virus shifted all over his body. Finally, in his full bugster form, Graphite sat there before him, knees up to his chest with one claw resting on the couch cushions, the other elbow propped on the rest behind him. "Well, then, you've got yourself a friend, Kujo."

With the change in Graphite's size, his talons shifted forward to touch Kiriya's socked toes. He didn't pull them away or anything, so Kiriya didn't either, content to have this little bit of contact after being out cold for however long it'd been. He leaned back against the armrest, fully relaxing and grinning back at Graphite. The dragon stared down at him then shifted to do the same.

It was there Kiriya decided that he wanted more of this. He could be happy if it just ended like this, with the punch finally out of the way and not causing Kiriya any unnecessary tension around Graphite, and them as friends with this easy atmosphere between them. But he'd already gotten this far with Graphite, and nothing ever happened from not trying. So he wanted to try something, push his boundaries a little, and with the holidays coming up, there would be plenty of excuses for his little plan.

He wanted to kiss Graphite, at least once.

If it didn't go well and ended their friendship, that was on him, but this moment gave him the slightest hope that something could happen between them, and he was willing to take that chance. 


	20. Chapter 20

With Graphite around, decorating for the holidays went much faster, unlike previous years, where it was just Poppy by herself. Last year, with Kiriya helping, it was a lot more fun, though still slow. They easily got distracted, throwing lights and tinsel over each other, or doodling Christmas adjacent things on the whiteboard. But Graphite was efficient, and cut their goofing off to about half since he was generally unresponsive to their pranks and horsing around. Though he did blush when they threw a string of lights around him and Kiriya teasingly pulled him close, telling him he looked good.

Poppy handed Kiriya two bundles of mistletoe to hang up somewhere as she detangled another string of lights and Graphite was out getting things from storage. He looked around the room carefully, deliberating where to put the mistletoe for the most chaos during busy times in CR and the party. His eyes finally landed on the perfect spot, got some duct tape and climbed onto the railing of the staircase. Kiriya balanced precariously on his toes as he haphazardly slapped the tape and the mistletoe string right above the staircase landing. It was an awkward place and easy to miss, therefore easy to fluster people getting caught under it together when he or Poppy noticed and called out to them about it.

With the hard one out of the way, he put the second one in the obvious spot. With another strip of duct tape, he stuck it onto the doorframe above the entrance to CR. Just at that moment, the door slid open to Graphite, carrying a small stack of extra chairs.

Oh god, it had come too soon, but this was the perfect time to just get it over with and kiss him. So why was Kiriya frozen to the spot? He could do this, he was usually confident and—

Graphite was opening his mouth to speak. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Kiriya directed all his focus onto his next words since this could be important and he couldn't be freaking out if and completely miss whatever Graphite needed to say.

But instead, Graphite just bit his lip, looking unsure for once, and shook his head slightly. He looked past Kiriya into CR and forced a smile.

"Looks like you finally got serious about this, huh? Good."

Kiriya screamed internally, what?! What was he going to say? Was it really so unimportant or did Kiriya do something to make him change his mind?

"Heh, thanks. It's honestly going a lot faster since we have good help this year." Kiriya's mouth said way ahead of his brain.

Graphite shrugged, but in Kiriya's panic, it looked more like a wince. "True, but you two are capable, just unfocused. You could do this without me, easily."

"I wouldn't want to, though," And that _wow_ was way too close to the actual truth. Technically that was the whole point of this, but Kiriya suddenly felt uncomfortably exposed and needed to retreat.

Graphite gave him some kind of indecipherable look, mouth open in surprise. He licked his lips, mouth working, trying to find words and Kiriya could see he was about to say something important again. Not good, Kiriya couldn't handle something serious right now, he already messed up and needed to abort this plan.

"Hey, that looks like kinda a lot, lemme take some of those off your hands," Kiriya took the top three chairs from the stack and started moving them into the room, placing them at the table.

He could feel Graphite hadn't followed after him and was starting to get nervous, but suddenly a chair was placed down next to him and pushed in. Kiriya turned to come face to face with Graphite, still looking uneasy with whatever he was trying to say, but there was a sort of resigned look in his eyes this time around.

He just smiled, not quite reaching his eyes, "Thanks..." he mumbled, "For, uh... wanting me here."

"No prob, 'Phite." Kiriya nudged him with his elbow, biting back the "happy to have you" he wanted to say. He grinned up at Graphite, catching Poppy looking at them in a weird way over Graphite's shoulder, but ignored it for now and grabbed another chair to help Graphite finish up.

This was easy. This was something Kiriya could work with and keep doing. Was it what he wanted? No, but none of this worked out the way he thought it would, so he'd just do his stupid plan next chance he got, and whatever happened after that, he'd accept and try his best to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading all of this. This spiraled so far out of control, so thank you for sticking around this far on the ride with me. Also sorry for blowing up people's inboxes if they had subscriptions turned on for me. I appreciate the support.


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